BONNIE   MACKIRBY. 


BONNIE    MACKIRBY 


An  International  Episode 


BY 

LAURA  DAYTON   FESSENDEN, 

AUTHOR  OF 

A  COLONIAL  DAME,"  "  A  PURITAN  LOVER,"  ETC. 


CHICAGO  AND  NEW  YORK: 
RAND,  McNALLY   &    COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS. 


Copyright,  1898,  by  Rand,  McNally  &  Co. 


To  my  little  daughters,  ALICE  and  DOROTHY,  who 
have  listened  with  such  loving  interest  to  this  story 
as  it  came  to  me  bit  by  bit  from  the  world  of  fancy, 
I  dedicate  my  work.  May  they,  as  they  grow  out 
of  childhood  and  into  womanhood,  cultivate  the 
constant  companionship  of  Mercy,  the  crown  jewel  of 
womanhood  as  well  as  of  nations. 

LAURA  DAYTON  FESSENDEN, 

"  HAPPIEGOLUCKIE," 
Febriiary  16,  1898.  Highland  Park,  Illinois. 


2227841 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

"  My  Bonnie  lies  over  the  ocean, 
My  Bonnie  lies  over  the  sea, 
My  Bonnie  lies  over  the  ocean, 
Oh,  bring  back  my  Bonnie  to  me," 

Sang  Mr.  Talbot  Germond,  as  he  stood  beside 
the  window  of  his  smoking-room,  looking 
out  into  the  winter's  dusk,  a  dusk  pregnant 
with  a  storm  of  snow,  whose  birth  hour  was 
close  at  hand. 

4 '  I  say, ' '  he  remarked,  turning  as  he  spoke 
to  address  himself  to  a  man  who  was 
leaning  against  the  mantel-shelf,  and  barely 
out  of  reach  of  the  scorch  of  the  real  log 
fire  burning  brightly  on  the  polished 
brass  andirons.  "What  do  you  think  of  her 


6  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

marriage,  anyway?  She  was  a  sweet, 
pretty,  gentle  little  girl,  and  no  mistake! 
And  I  for  one  can't  help  wishing  that  the 
bridegroom  had  been  twenty  odd  years 
younger,  the  nuptial  day  May  instead  of 
December,  and  the  sky  bright  rather  than 
threatening. ' ' 

The  other  man  laughed  a  trifle  bitterly  (too 
bitterly  for  a  perfectly  disinterested  critic). 
"Mere  vagaries  of  a  distorted  fancy,  old 
boy,"  he  said;  "sure  evidence  of  a  fit  of 
indigestion!  Too  much  champagne  and 
pat6  de  f oie  gras  at  the  wedding  breakfast ! 
That  is  all !  A  good  sleep  to-night,  and  a 
brandy  and  soda  cocktail  in  the  waking 
moments  of  to-morrow  morning,  and  you 
will  be  able  to  see  that  Bonnie's  mother 
was  wise  when  she  made  an  English  alliance 
for  her  daughter.  What  does  it  matter  that 
the  duffer  the  girl  has  just  been  tied  to 
is  fifty,  and  shows  his  years?  What  does  it 
matter  if,  during  his  somewhat  protracted 
bachelor  existence,  he  has  been  pleased  to 
live  in  open  defiance  of  moral  decency?  He 
has,  I  grant  you,  the  manners  of  a  hog  and 
all  the  qualifications  of  a  fully-fledged  boor ; 
but,  then,  he  belongs,  we  are  told,  to  the 


ONNIE  MACKIRBY.  7 

4 '  English  upper  class, ' '  and  that  assurance 
in  itself,  even  when  the  foundation  for  the 
assertion  is  a  trifle  obscure,  seems  to  blind 
the  eyes  of  American  parvenus,  not  only 
to  a  multitude,  but  to  the  whole  category  of 
written  and  unwritten  sins. 

"You  are  to  always  bear  in  mind,  my  dear 
fellow,  that  Mr.  Mackirby's  grandfather  on 
his  mother's  side  was  a  brewer!  Brewers,  you 
know,  are  something  set  apart  in  England ! 
They  are  not  'in  trade'  to  begin  with! 
Anything  that  combines  vats  and  hops  gives 
entre'e  into  the  most  exalted  strata  of 
Albion's  rank  and  fashion.  And  should  any 
particular  brewer's  ale,  porter  or  beer  please 
the  royal  palate  or  agree  with  the  royal 
stomach,  why  a  coronet  is  not  unlikely  to  be 
the  reward. ' ' 

"But  this  Mackirby  is  not  a  brewer.  He 
is  in  trade,  personally  and  individually. 
He  haggles  and  shouts,  with  all  the  rest  of 
us,  on  'Change." 

"Well,  what  of  that?  If  dukes'  younger 
sons  no  longer  decline  positions  of  emolu- 
ment in  big  mercantile  houses,  a  baronet's 
grandson  may  safely  venture.  And  what's 
the  matter  with  cotton?  Cotton  is  all  right, 


8  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

and  it's  cleaner  than  either  pork  or  crude 
oil  to  handle,  you  know.  But  come  and 
lookout!  See,  there  they  go!  How  like 
a  child  she  looks,  to  be  sure!" 

"Yes,  I  agree  with  you!  Beauty  and  the 
Beast  is  a  fitting  and  appropriate  title, 
although  Madame  Me*re"  calls  it  playfully 
4 Una  and  her  Lion!'  God  grant  that 
Madame  may  have  no  remorseful  nights 
and  bitterly  repentant  days.  How  they  are 
showering  the  rice !  Mackirby  is  everlast- 
ingly having  a  time  of  it  to  look  pleasant 
and  keep  from  swearing  (rice  stings!). 
They  are  in  the  carriage.  They  are  off! 
Not  a  shoe  has  hit  its  mark!  Listen  how 
the  wind  is  moaning!" 

"Well,  Talbot,  pull  down  the  shade, 
draw  the  curtains,  and  light  up.  That 
girl's  life  history  has  closed,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned.  Let's  take  cigars  and  talk 
about  the  horse  show,  or  the  dog  show,  or 
something  that  is  yet  to  be." 

Talbot  Germond  drew  one  end  of  his  mus- 
tache slowly  through  his  fingers,  as  he  said, 
reflectively:  "Rand,  did  you  ever,  in  your 
happy-go-lucky  life,  feel  as  you  have  looked 
upon  some  one  a  sense  of  forebodement?  A 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  9 

sort  of  conviction  that  their  part  in  the  play 
was  to  be  tragic?  Well,  whether  you  have  or 
not,  I  tell  you,  and  I  want  you  to  remember 
what  I  say,  that  the  little  girl  whose  mother 
has  to-day  sold  her  (from  God  knows  what 
insane  motive)  has  a  dark  path  ahead  of 
her!" 

Rand  laughed.  "The  fact  of  the  matter 
is,  Talbot, "  he  said,  "that  we  were,  my  lad, 
both  very  fond  of  Bonnie.  Her  sweet,  pure 
soul  appealed  to  our  better  natures;  she 
was  the  girl  that  made  us  think  oftenest  of 
our  mothers ;  her  influence  made  us  go  home 
and  write  to  our  sisters.  Did  you  ever  think 
of  Bonnie  as  a  rich  girl?  I  never  did,  in 
spite  of  her  poor  Anglomaniac  of  a  mother. 
"Bonnie  was  a  lady  by  the  right  of  both 
birth  and  breeding;  her  money  was  always 
in  abeyance ;  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  her ; 
it  never  presented  itself  in  any  act  of  her 
life,  in  any  outward  expression;  her  per- 
sonal adornment  was  distinctive  and  har- 
monious, but  it  gave  evidence  of  neither 
display  nor  extravagance;  and  that  great 
underbred  fellow  can  no  more  appreciate 
her  delicacy  or  daintiness  than  he  could 
enjoy  the  color  of  a  rose  or  the  subtle  fra- 


io  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

grance  of  a  violet.  He  got  access  to  her  bank 
account,  he  found  out  the  actual  value  of 
her  stocks  and  bonds ;  he  acquainted  himself 
with  the  number  of  pieces  of  property  that 
she  held  title  to,  and  then  he  talked  up  his 
English  aristocracy  with  her  mother!" 

"It  is  little  more  than  a  year,"  said  Ger- 
mond,  "since  Bonnie  used  to  go  by  here 
every  morning  on  her  way  to  school,  her 
books  under  her  arm,  her  child  voice  (a 
sweet,  clear  treble)  trying  to  make  itself 
heard  through  the  babble  and  chatter  of 
her  girl  companions,  as  they  made  merry 
over  innocent  nothings. ' ' 

There  was  a  silence,  and  then  Rand  said : 
"Bonnie  comes  of  a  long  line  of  honorable 
men ;  her  ancestors  on  her  father's  side  were 
gentlemen  of  birth  and  station.  They  came 
from  England  in  the  early  Colonial  days  to 
hold  positions  of  trust  in  church  and  state. 
They  were  men  who  learned  to  love  New 
England  so  well  that  they  never  returned 
to  the  Old  World,  and  in  time  their  sons' 
sons  fought  a  brave  fight  for  liberty,  and 
their  names  and  deeds  are  written  upon  the 
list  that  records  the  patriots  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution.  So,  whatever  Bonnie  may 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  n 

suffer,  whatever  her  awakening  may  be,  be 
sure  that  she  will  do  her  duty  bravely,  be 
sure  that  she  will  be  a  faithful  wife  and  a 
loving  mother. " 


12  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER   II. 

Charnley  Street  West  was  one  of  the  most 
desirable  residence  quarters  in  all  the  great 
city  of  Ploverlie ;  to  live  in  Charnley  Street 
one  must  have  money,  money  to  deck  its 
excrescences  called  "residences"  with  fur- 
nishings of  lace  and  velvet,  rare  woods  and 
massive  silver,  exquisite  china,  and  accred- 
ited works  of  art,  gorgeous  footmen  and 
bishop-like  butlers,  fine  horses  and  garish 
equipages — money  for  lavish  displays  of 
hot-house  flowers  and  fruits,  for  fabulously 
expensive  wines,  and  a  constant  succession 
of  dinners,  teas,  receptions  and  routs  during 
the  conventional  season ;  money  wherewith 
(at  a  given  signal  from  the  social  auto- 
crat) to  swathe  all  the  gorgeous  furniture 
in  Holland;  swathe  the  pictures  and  bank 
the  plate,  and  then  hie  away  to  some 
country-house  or  shooting-box. 

At  No.  6 1  Charnley  Street  West  lived  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  William  Harcourt  Wiggins  Mac- 
kirby.  Everybody,  it  was  said,  knew  the 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  13 

Mackirbys  or  wanted  to  know  them,  because 
Mr.  Mackirby  was  "in"  with  the  best  set. 
William  Mackirby  was  grandson  to  dear  old 
Sir  William  Wiggins,  who  did  make  the 
most  delightful  stout,  you  know.  It  was  a 
dead  pity  that  William  Mackirby  had 
married  an  American;  but  then  the  dear 
man  had  been  a  business  failure,  and  he 
needed  a  lift.  It  was  also  supposed  at  one 
time  that  he  was  rather  rapid — too  fond  of 
cards  and  betting  at  races,  and  (bend  your 
ear,  and  let  me  whisper),  but  then  boys  will 
be  boys,  you  know.  Besides  this  William 
Mackirby  had  younger  brothers,  and  so  the 
American  wife's  money  had  been  very  use- 
ful— very  useful,  indeed. 

It  was,  of  course  (the  marriage,  don't  you 
know)  a  great  trial  to  dear  Madame  Mac- 
kirby, but  she  bore  it  beautifully,  and  had 
even  put  herself  out  to  receive  once  or 
twice  with  young  Mrs.  Mackirby,  who  was 
wofully  wanting,  don't  you  know,  in 
appreciation,  young  Mrs.  Mackirby  being  so 
awfully  American,  don't  you  know." 

The  Mackirbys  had  been  married,  when 
our  story  opens,  ten  years. 

Three   times    upon     Bonnie     Mackirby's 


14  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

breast  had  been  laid  a  little  head,  over  which 
she  had  showered  words  of  mother  wel- 
come and  tears  of  joy.  And  in  those  quiet 
hours  she  had  asked  God  to  give  back  to  her 
some  remnant  of  faith  in  the  father  of  her 
children.  She  did  not  ask  "to  love  him," 
but  she  asked  for  courage  to  meet  and  to 
pass  over  in  quietness  his  lack  of  courtesy, 
kindness,  and  many  other  things  that  are  so 
necessary  to  a  happy  wifehood.  She  prayed 
"to  be  able  for  her  children's  sake  to 
believe  it  was  her  duty  to  live  on  and  out  a 
life  of  self-repression  and  self-renunciation 
until  the  end." 

The  youngest  child  was  now  a  little  maiden 
of  two,  and  there  was  no  longer  any  excuse 
for  Mrs.  Mackirby's  not  participating  in  the 
giddy  whirl  of  social  events  that  were  crowd- 
ing and  jostling  upon  each  other's  heels, 
and  wearing  out  the  souls  and  bodies  of  the 
men  and  women  who  were  trying  to  live  up 
to  the  pace  of  the  hour. 

On  this  particular  day  of  this  particular 
year,  Mrs.  Mackirby  stood  before  her  mirror, 
making  the  finishing  touches  to  her  after- 
noon toilette,  preparatory  to  driving  to  a 
round  of  "TV  and  "at-homes,"  when  her 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  15 

maid  entered  and  handed  her  a  note.  It 
was  evident  that  the  handwriting  was  not 
unknown  to  Mrs.  Mackirby,  for  a  deeper 
flush  came  to  her  cheeks,  and  there  was  a 
perceptible  tightening  of  her  red  lips,  as 
she  drew  the  paper  from  the  unsealed 
envelope  and  read  its  contents.  The  maid, 
meanwhile,  stood,  white-capped,  white- 
aproned  and  respectful,  watching  every 
movement  of  her  mistress'  face. 

Mrs.  Mackirby  read  the  note  over  twice, 
then  going  to  the  mantel  she  took  a  match, 
struck  it,  and  twisting  first  the  letter  and 
then  the  envelope  into  a  curl  of  paper,  let 
them  burn  in  the  grate  to  a  dull  gray  ash. 
Then  taking  the  poker,  she  distributed  the 
ashes  until  she  was  assured  that  not  a  ves- 
tige remained. 

Just  as  this  task  or  whim  had  been  accom- 
plished, Mr.  Mackirby  made  his  appearance. 
He  was  short-breathed,  and  was  puffing 
audibly  from  the  effects  of  climbing  the 
stairs,  and  his  usually  white  face  had  a  pur- 
ple flush  on  it.  "Going  out?"  he  managed 
to  gasp.  She  turned  toward  him  as  he 
spoke;  her  fine  nostrils  were  dilated,  her 
beautiful  dark  blue  eyes  looked  straight  into 


16  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

his.  "Yes, "  she  answered,  quietly.  "I  had 
expected  to  make  some  visits,  but  I  have 
changed  my  plan.  I  shall  spend  the  after- 
noon with  your  mother.  I  have  some  things 
to  say  to  her  thtit  it  may  be  for  her  future 
interest  to  hear. ' '  His  color  went  and  came 
under  her  fixed  gaze.  His  sixty  years  of  life 
furnished  him  with  no  reserve  of  even  brute 
courage  wherewith  to  look  into  her  eyes.  So 
he  took  refuge  in  vulgar  banter.  "You  had 
better  put  on  a  little  rouge, ' '  he  said,  with  a 
laugh.  "You  are  growing  too  white  for 
even  your  fetching  style  of  beauty.  Amer- 
ican women  fade  early,  but,  like  many  other 
dried-up  things  in  nature,  they  hang  on,  for- 
ever and  a  day.  A  woman's  good-looks  and 
her  life  should  be  given  their  conge"  together. ' ' 
For  answer,  Mrs.  Mackirby  looked  quietly 
toward  the  motionless,  expressionless  maid. 
"Tell  Thomas, "  she  said,  "that  I  shall  not 
want  him  for  this  half-hour.  I  will  ring  for 
you  if  I  need  you.  Close  the  door."  She 
was  at  the  lock  as  the  maid  gained  the  cor- 
ridor. She  turned  the  key,  then  walked 
back  to  where  her  husband  was  standing, 
and  stood  so  close  to  him  that  her  breath 
fanned  his  face. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  17 

"Do  you  think,"  she  said,  slowly,  "that  it 
is  an  evidence  of  birth  or  breeding  to  speak 
to  a  wife  as  you  have  just  spoken  to  me 
before  a  servant?  Do  you  think,  even  if  you 
do  not  love  me  or  cherish  me,  that  I  deserve 
such  discourtesy  at  your  hands?  Do  you 
not  realize  what  financial  comforts  I  have 
brought  to  you,  your  mother  and  your 
brothers?" 

"How  dare  you!"  he  said,  thrusting  his 
face  still  closer  to  hers.  "How  dare  you, 
you  young  upstart!  How  dare  you!  you 
who  offered  yourself  to  me  body  and  soul, 
say  that  I  am  beholden  to  you  for  any- 
thing?" His  last  words  were  less  vehement, 
less  threatening.  He  felt  the  unmoved 
steadiness  of  her  gaze,  the  quiet,  fearless 
dignity  of  her  presence. 

"If,"  she  said  slowly,  as  though  continu- 
ing the  speech  he  had  broken  in  upon,  and 
quite  unconscious  of  his  interruption,  "if 
you  had  remained  decently  loyal  to  your 
obligations  of  husband  and  father,  I  should 
have  considered  it  best  to  have  continued, 
for  the  childrens'  sake,  the  support  to  your 
mother,  yourself  and  your  brothers.  As  it 
is,  I  shall  make  it  my  duty  to  go  to  London 


1 8  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

and  consult  with  a  lawyer  whom  I  know 
as  to  the  most  speedy  way  of  securing  a 
separation  from  you  and  obtaining  the 
guardianship  of  my  little  girls." 

Before  she  could  realize  his  intention, 
perhaps  before  he  was  conscious  in  the 
blind,  mad  anger  of  his  action,  the  man, 
with  all  the  force  at  his  command,  had 
struck  the  woman  standing  before  him  a 
blow  in  the  face.  She  neither  cried  out 
nor  fainted.  She  showed  no  evidence  of 
shock  or  anger.  She  stood  still  and  looked 
at  him,  and  he  looked  with  something  akin 
to  horror  at  the  white  welts  his  fingers  had 
made. 

"May  I  suggest,"  he  said,  at  last,  in  a 
voice  meant  to  be  lightly  scornful,  "that  it 
would  be  wise  if  in  the  future  you  reserve 
your  indelicate  insinuations  for  other  ears 
than  mine?  Remember,  I  do  not  permit 
my  mother  to  be  spoken  disrespectfully  of, 
even  by  my  wife.  As  for  your  threat,  it  will 
never  be  more  than  that.  You  are  too  vain 
to  let  the  world  know  that  you  were 
weighed  in  the  balance  and  found  wanting. 
My  chastisement  has  been  severe,  but  it 
was  justly  inflicted. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  19 

"Arnica  is  recommended  to  reduce  inflam- 
mation and  swelling;  pray  send  to  the 
chemist  for  some  if  you  have  not  any  by 
you;  and  now  I  wish  you  good-after- 
noon. ' '  He  walked  to  the  door  and  unlocked 
it.  As  he  was  about  tD  pass  out,  he  added 
suavely :  ' '  Perhaps  you  would  better  dilute 
with  one  part  of  water;  the  crude  arnica 
might  be  too  severe, ' '  and  he  was  gone. 


20  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER   III. 

Bonnie  Mackirby  walked  to  the  long 
mirror  and  looked  critically  at  her  face.  It 
was  beginning  to  swell  and  look  dark,  and 
she  felt  a  strange  stiffness  in  the  muscles. 
She  went  to  her  bureau,  and  took  from  one 
of  the  drawers  a  black  Spanish  lace  veil, 
and  proceeded  to  tie  it  over  her  face  and 
bonnet.  Then  she  rang  the  bell.  "Tell 
Thomas,"  she  said  to  the  proper  maid, 
who  appeared  before  she  had  taken  her 
fingers  from  the  knob,  "to  bring  the  carriage 
at  once." 

"It  is  at  the  door  now,  mem." 

"So  much  the  better;  but,  Elizabeth, 
where  are  the  children?" 

"The  young  ladies  are  hout  with  Parks, 
mem." 

"When  they  come  in,  tell  them  that  I 
asked  for  them,  and  say  that  I  shall  surely 
be  home  in  time  to  take  tea  in  the  nursery. ' ' 
Then  she  walked  past  the  prim  maid,  went 
down  the  stairs  and  out  to  her  carriage. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  21 

The  footman  stood  holding  the  brougham 
door  open.  Mrs.  Mackirby  paused  with  one 
foot  upon  the  step.  "James,"  she  said, 
"tell  Thomas  to  drive  to  the  bank  in  Pan- 
cross  Street.  I  shall  be  detained  some  time ; 
so  you  may  leave  me  there  and  go  home. ' ' 

James  touched  his  hat,  saw  that  all  Mrs. 
Mackirby 's  skirts  were  carefully  put  out  of 
che  way  of  the  carriage-door,  shut  her 
softly  in,  gave  his  orders  to  Thomas, 
mounted  his  seat,  folded  his  arms,  and  they 
were  off.  In  due  time  Mrs.  Mackirby 
reached  Pancross  Street  and  entered  the  bank. 

"I  wish,"  she  said  to  an  usher,  "to  see 
Mr.  Prindle.  I  am  Mrs.  Mackirby." 

"Ah,  indeed !  Pray  step  this  way,  this  was 
Mr.  Prindle's  room.  Mr.  Prindle,  Mrs. 
Mackirby. ' ' 

Mr.  Prindle,  brisk,  dry  and  varnished  (not 
polished)  lost  no  time  in  getting  out  of  his 
high  wheel-about,  counting-house  chair — 
placid,  beaming  and  effusive  he  was — say- 
ing, "Now,  really,  what  could  he  have  the 
pleasure  of  doing  for  Mrs.  Mackirby?"  and 
"Wouldn't  Mrs.  Mackirby  be  seated?" 
"Really,  he  would  be  glad  if  she  would." 

Mrs.   Mackirby  "wanted   Mr.    Prindle  to 


22  BONNIE   MACKIRBY. 

call  her  up  a  messenger;"  she  "wanted 
pen,  ink  and  paper — that  was  all." 

These  requests  were  speedily  acceded 
to,  the  note  was  written  and  directed,  the 
messenger  dispatched,  and  then,  thanking 
Mr.  Prindle  for  his  courtesy,  Mrs.  Mackirby 
left  the  bank  and  walked  to  a  chemist's 
shop,  a  shop  at  which  she  was  in  the  habit 
of  making  any  medicinal  purchases  neces- 
sary for  herself  or  her  household. 

To  the  man  who  came  forward  to  serve 
her  she  said:  "I  scarcely  think  you  will 
recognize  Mrs.  Mackirby  through  this  heavy 
veil,  Mr.  Tinker.  I  am  obliged  to  wear  it 
because  I  have  bruised  my  face,  and  I  have 
come  in  to  have  you  give  me  the  ingredients 
to  form  a  lotion  which  my  grandmother 
and  my  mother  both  used  for  whitening  the 
skin.  If  you  will  write  down  the  names 
and  quantities  as  I  give  them  to  you,  you 
may  send  them  home  for  me,  as  my  carriage 
is  not  here." 

"How,"  asked  Mr.  Tinker,  looking  up 
from  reading  over  the  list  of  ingredients, 
"how,  may  I  ask,  do  you  use  the  fly-paper?" 

"Why,"  said  Mrs.  Mackirby,  "I  lay  it  in 
a  saucer,  and  pour  on  about  four  table- 


BONNIE   MACKIRBY.  23 

spoonfuls  of  water.  When  the  fly-paper 
has  been  thoroughly  soaked  it  contains 
enough  arsenic  to  give  the  lotion  a  bleach- 
ing effect;  the  rest  of  the  things,  like 
glycerine  and  elderflower,  soothe  and  heal." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  Mr.  Tinker,  and  he 
bowed  Mrs.  Mackirby  to  the  door. 

Once  outside  the  chemist's,  she  took  her 
way  to  a  street  somewhat  removed  from  the 
busy  center  of  trade  and  traffic,  in  which 
there  had  long  been  established  a  quiet, 
respectable  hotel,  much  frequented  by  coun- 
try merchants  and  progressive  farmers  and 
their  families.  She  went  through  the  door 
of  the  private  entrance  and  up  the  stairs, 
and  into  the  public  parlor  or  reception-room. 

A  few  people  were  sitting  in  groups  by  the 
windows  and  near  the  door.  One  man  was 
seated  at  a  table,  pretending  to  be  interested 
in  a  copy  of  the  "Illustrated  News."  As 
Mrs.  Mackirby  entered,  he  looked  up,  laid 
down  his  paper,  rose,  and,  hat  in  hand,  came 
toward  her.  There  was  no  cordiality  in 
his  manner,  he  looked  both  perplexed  and 
annoyed ;  but  he  was  evidently  too  well  bred 
to  be  anything  but  formally  polite  and  gra- 
cious. 


24  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

Motioning  him  to  take  a  chair  and 
seating  herself  upon  another,  Mrs.  Mackirby 
lifted  her  veil. 

"I  received  your  note,"  she  said,  and 
I  have  asked  you  to  meet  me  here 
to  tell  you  that  every  accusation  your 
letter  contained  against  my  husband 
has  been  known  to  me  for  a  long  time,  but 
until  your  note  came  I  had  always  supposed 
you  to  be  his  particular  friend,  his  boon 
companion ;  but  even  believing  this,  I  have 
never  been  able  to  understand  for  what  pur- 
pose Mr.  Mackirby  has  brought  you  so  con- 
stantly into  his  private  life,  has  thrust  you 
so  insistently  upon  me,  has  left  you  to  be  my 
companion  through  long  evenings,  has  left 
me  dependent  upon  your  escort  from  theaters 
and  balls;  but  through  it  all,  you  cannot 
say  that  any  act  or  word  of  mine  has  been 
disloyal  to  my  vows  of  wifehood  and  mother- 
hood. And  now  has  come  a  time  when  I 
decline  to  endure  longer  your  presence  in 
my  home,  and  I  have  come  to  ask  you 
to-day  to  decline  Mr.  Mackirby's  invita- 
tions. This  is  all,  save  to  request  you  to 
return  to  me  now  the  note  written  you  from 
the  bank." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  25 

He  took  the  note  from  his  pocket  and 
handed  it  to  her,  with  a  bow. 

"1  should,"  he  said,  "be  greedy  indeed  if 
out  of  my  abundance  of  love-letters  from  the 
charming  Mrs.  Mackirby  I  refused  her 
this  proper  little  note. ' ' 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  said,  leaning 
toward  him,  "What  do  yon  mean?" 

"I  mean,"  he  answered,  in  a  voice  as 
cold  and  calm  as  hers  was  hurried,  "I  mean 
that  your  love-letters  to  me  exceed  in  num- 
ber those  said  to  have  been  written  by  Van- 
nessa  to  Swift. ' ' 

She  looked  about  her  in  a  dazed,  stupid 
way,  she  put  one  hand  to  her  temple,  and 
then  sank  back  into  her  chair. 

He  leaned  toward  her.  "If,"  he  whis- 
pered, "you  deny  me  admission  to  your 
house,  you  will  wish  before  many  days  are 
over  that  you  had  never  been  born.  Your 
husband  is  a  puppet  in  my  hands.  I  have 
been  useful  to  him  in  procuring  a  certain 
drug  that  it  is  difficult  to  purchase,  even 
with  much  American  gold.  If  you  are  not 
more  than  kind  to  me,  I  will  gather  the 
letters  1  have  alluded  to  together  and  give 


26  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

them  personally  into  your  husband's  hands!" 
She  said  no  word  in  reply.     She  simply 
rose  and  left  the  room  and  the  hotel,  and 
hailing  a  cab,  drove  directly  home. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  2? 


CHAPTER   IV. 

As  she  drew  up  at  No.  61  Charnley  Street, 
Mrs.  Mackirby  noticed  that  a  doctor's  gig 
was  before  the  house,  and  to  her  question  as 
to  who  had  been  taken  ill,  she  was  informed 
by  the  butler  that  "the  master  was  very 
bad" '  and  was  "groanin'  and  takin'  on  awful. " 

With  all  speed  Mrs.  Mackirby  hurried  up 
the  stairs,  and  entered  her  husband's  room. 
One  glance  in  his  face  told  her  how  ill  he 
was,  and  with  this  knowledge  she  forgot 
resentment,  forgot  her  recent  encounter, 
forgot  everything  but  that  the  father  of  her 
children  was  sick  and  suffering.  She  had 
taken  off  her  bonnet,  and  she  was  conscious 
that  the  strange  doctor — who  lived  near  by, 
and  whom  the  servants  had  called  in  as  the 
nearest  practitioner — was  looking  in  aston- 
ished fashion  at  her  swollen,  discolored  face ; 
but  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  was  very 
fleeting,  for  her  husband's  voice  recalled  all 
her  interest  to  him  and  to  his  sufferings. 

"Oh,  Bonnie!  Bonnie!"  he  said.     "lam 


28  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

so  glad  that  you  have  come!  The  doctor 
does  not  seem  to  understand.  It  is  the  old 
trouble,  Bonnie,  the  pain,  the  thirst,  the 
nausea." 

' '  Dear ! "  she  said,  bending  over  him ,  ' '  have 
you  been  buying  and  taking  more  patent 
medicines  and  dangerous  drugs  at  the  office?' ' 

He  answered  "Yes"  to  her  with  his  eyes; 
he  was  too  weak  and  sick  to  speak  more 
words. 

"I  think,  doctor,"  she  said,  looking  up, 
"that  we  had  better  use  an  emetic." 

The  doctor  was  a  young  man,  and  but 
recently  received  into  the  medical  ranks,  and 
he  took  umbrage  at  any  suggestion  made  to 
him  concerning  the  treatment  of  a  patient 
under  his  care,  and  particularly  to  advice 
given  by  a  woman,  who  evidently  was  ad- 
dicted to  drink,  and  who  in  one  of  her 
recent  debauches  had  fallen  and  badly 
disfigured  her  face. 

' '  I  am  not  in  the  habit,  madame, ' '  he  said 
severely,  "of  applying  remedies  that  are 
not  applicable  to  the  condition  and  the 
symptoms  of  my  patient.  I  perfectly 
realize  Mr.  Mackirby's  cause  of  illness — 
indigestion  takes  on  many  forms  and 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  29 

guises.  Mr.  Mackirby,  madame,  has  an 
acute  attack  of  what  we  know  in  the  profes- 
sion as  cardalgia,  and  perhaps  gastralgia,  of 
the  stomach. ' ' 

"I  do  not  question  your  ability,"  said  Mrs. 
Mackirby,  gently;  "but  for  more  than  ten 
years  my  husband  has  been  subject  to  just 
such  attacks  as  these — some  more,  some  less 
violent — and  I  have  come  to  know  that  the 
best  method  of  relief  is  that  which  I  intend 
to  apply.  Nothing  else  has  saved  him  from 
death  many  a  time  before;  nothing  else 
will  save  him  now.  Our  family  physician, 
who  is  absent  from  the  city,  would  convince 
you  that  I  am  correct  if  he  were  here. ' ' 

"Ami,  then,  to  imply,  madame,  that  your 
husband  is  in  the  habit  of  feeding  himself 
on  poisons,  and  that  he  is  sometimes  careless 
and  overreaches  the  dose?" 

"You  may  imply  what  you  choose,"  she 
said,  in  answer,  "but  I  shall  apply  my 
remedy. ' ' 

Her  manner  quieted  the  young  man,  but 
his  pride  was  wounded,  and  he  held  Mrs. 
Mackirby  a  grudge,  and  he  did  not  fail  to 
use  it  to  her  disparagement  when  time  and 
opportunity  gave  occasion. 


30  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER    V. 

The  treatment  prescribed  by  Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby  to  Mr.  Mackirby  was  so  eminently  a 
success  that  the  gentleman  in  question,  a 
little  weak  and  a  trifle  less  pugnacious  than 
usual,  went  down  to  his  office  the  next  day 
and  brought  back  his  bosom  friend  and  boon 
companion,  Mr.  Jack  Thornely,  to  luncheon. 
They  had  a  mutual  engagement  for  the 
afternoon  and  evening,  and  proposed  to 
drive  to  the  rendezvous  together. 

Mrs.  Mackirby  presided  at  luncheon. 
The  swelling  on  her  face  had  considerably 
moderated,  but  the  purple  streaks  still 
remained. 

"Mrs.  Mackirby  had  a  bad  slip-up  yester- 
day, ' '  said  Mr.  Mackirby,  helping  himself  to 
ham  and  lettuce;  "isn't  she  fetching,  Jack? 
Aye?" 

Mr.  Thornely  allowed  his  bold  black  eyes 
to  search  the  face  of  his  hostess  in  a  way 
that  should  have  made  her  husband  rise  up 
and  kick  him  from  the  room  and  the  house. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  31 

But  as  it  was,  he  merely  smiled  as  he  saw 
the  hot  blood  and  the  faint  paleness  succeed 
each  other  in  his  wife's  bruised  face. 

"Bonnie,"  he  continued,  "knows  all 
manner  of  lotions  and  balms  to  hide  blem- 
ishes. What  did  you  put  on  this  time, 
Bonnie?" 

"It  is  a  lotion  that  grandmother  used  to 
use,"  she  answered,  "and  really  it  is  a  won- 
derful thing.  I  suppose  the  arsenic  that  is 
one  of  the  ingredients  is  answerable  in  large 
measure  for  effacing  discolorations. ' ' 

"I  should  think,"  said  Mr.  Thornely, 
"that  arsenic  would  be  a  very  unsafe  thing 
to  have  about,  particularly  where  there  are 
little  children." 

He  looked  at  Mr.  Mackirby,  but  Mrs. 
Mackirby  answered:  "I  do  not  use  crude 
arsenic;  I  get  it  by  buying  fly-paper  and 
soaking  it  in  water,  and  it  is  not  often,  I  am 
thankful  to  say,  that  I  have  to  use  the 
remedy;  and  when  it  is  necessary  and  I  am 
steeping  the  fly-paper,  I  put  it  on  a  shelf, 
out  of  reach  of  the  children,  and  caution 
everybody  else  about  it. ' ' 

" But, "  said  Thornely,  "suppose  Mackirby 
should  get  hold  of  it.  Mackirby  is  rather 


3*  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

fond  of  testing  the  effect  of  arsenic  in  its 
various  forms  upon  himself. ' ' 

"I  think,"  answered  the  wife,  "that  it 
would  take  more  than  one  dose  of  steeped 
fly-paper  to  seriously  trouble  Mr.  Mackirby, 
and  if  such  a  thing  did  occur,  there  is  always 
the  mustard  water,  you  know. ' ' 

Her  words  seemed  to  anger  Mr.  Mackirby, 
but  she,  who  was  used  to  his  moods  and 
words,  saw  nothing  to  heed  or  to  remember 
in  the  remarks  he  flung  at  her  from  the 
opposite  end  of  the  table,  but  the  servants  in 
the  room  found  salable  worth  in  every 
syllable  in  an  hour  and  a  day  that  was  yet  to 
come. 

"Bonnie,  this  talk  of  arsenic  and  poison  is 
no  laughing  matter ;  and  you  make  a  grave 
mistake  in  letting  it  seem  as  though  you 
were  indifferent  at  leaving  about  anything 
that  can  kill  at  sight — as  easily  as  a  pistol — 
Now,  let  us  suppose  that  you  were 
— just  for  argument,  you  know — a  vicious- 
minded  and  fast  young  woman,  rather  than 
the  dear  domestic  dove  that  you  are !  Let 
us  suppose  that  you  had  grown  weary  of 
your  middle-aged  husband,  and  had  fallen 
in  love  with  a  younger  man.  Let  us  sup- 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  33 

pose  that  the  man  to  whom  you  had  osten- 
sibly given  your  heart  and  hand  should  die 
suddenly.  And  suppose,  my  darling,  it 
should  be  known  that  you  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  dabbling  in  poisons.  Wise  people 
would  put  two  and  two  together,  and  the 
result  might  not  be  pleasant.  Circum- 
stantial evidence  is  an  elastic  condition ;  add 
to  this  a  lover  who  could  be  proved,  and  a 
beauty,  which,  whether  real  or  manufac- 
tured, answers  one  and  the  same  purpose 
for  the  majority,  and  what  a  case  you  have ! 

"Robert,  another  roll!  Ah,  mother," 
for  into  the  room  had  come  a  little  old  lady, 
very  youthfully  and  fussily  dressed,  who 
went  directly  up  to  Mr.  Mackirby's  chair 
and  gave  him  a  bird-like,  pecky  kiss  on  his 
forehead,  shook  hands  with  Mr.  Thornely, 
who  came  effusively  forward,  and  then  tak- 
ing a  chair  beside  her  son,  nodded  toward 
his  wife  in  half-unconscious  token  of  recog- 
nition, as  she  said: 

"I  heard  that  you  were  at  the  bank  yester- 
day, Bonnie.  If  you  remember  I  asked 
you,  as  a  particular  favor,  as  I  did  not  wish 
to  bother  dear  William,  to  cash  me  five  hun- 
dred pounds.  Yes,  William,  I  actually  took 
3 


34  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

the  trouble  to  write  this  request  to  your 
wife,  and  yet  she  obliges  me,  a  woman 
nearly  eighty  years  old,  to  come  here  and 
complain  to  you  of  her  remissness !  It  has 
always  been  a  matter  of  wonder  to  me  that 
people  speaking  the  same  language,  people 
supposed  to  be  an  offshoot  of  our  own  race, 
should  be  so  completely  lacking  in  every 
trait  that  is  pre-eminently  English.  When 
has  this  American  wife  of  yours  ever  shown 
me  respect,  courtesy  or  attention?" 

"It's  only  a  matter  of  long  removal  from 
the  center  of  civilization,  mother,"  said  Mr. 
Mackirby,  buttering  his  roll.  "Turn  any 
species  of  tame  animals  into  the  wilderness 
long  enough,  and  they  will  lose  every  trace 
of  obedience  and  submission. ' ' 

"Well,"  cried  the  old  lady,  "I  thank  God 
on  my  bended  knees  every  day  of  my  life 
that  you,  William,  have  had  the  good  sense 
not  to  bring  a  man  child  into  the  world. ' ' 
She  stopped  and  glared  indignantly  at  her 
daughter-in-law.  "No,  madame,"  she  con- 
tinued, with  added  fervor,  "my  son's  name 
will  never  descend  through  you;  no  base 
American  strain  will  mingle  with  our  honor- 
able pedigree.  But,  Bonnie,  why  did  you 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  35 

not  get  that  money  for  me  yesterday? 
You  were  out  for  a  long  time,  and  you 
didn't  spend  your  entire  afternoon  at  the 
bank,  either!" 

Mrs.  Mackirby  was  spared  answering  by 
a  little  shrill  scream  from  madame. 

"Whatever  have  you  done  to  your  face?" 
she  cried,  holding  her  lorgnette  in  her 
palsied  fingers,  to  her  eyes,  and  gazing  with 
an  expression  of  entertaining  interest  into 
her  daughter-in-law's  disfigured  counte- 
nance. "Not  burning  it  with  some  vile, 
home-made  cosmetic,  I  hope!  It  is  vulgar 
enough  to  use  those  that  are  skillfully  pre- 
pared and  sold  in  shops,  but  such  bungling 
creations  as  you  are  forever  puttering  in 
are  sure  to  end  disastrously,  if  not  fatally!" 

It  takes  but  a  straw,  they  say,  a  straw 
more  to  make  the  burden  too  heavy  for  the 
camel's  back. 

"I  use  no  cosmetics,"  answered  young 
Mrs.  Mackirby.  "I  do  not  need  them;  you, 
madame,  use  enough  for  the  entire  family. " 

The  old  lady  dropped  her  eye-glasses  with 
a  clatter  upon  the  plate  before  her. 

"William!"  she  cried,  working  her  mouth 
and  nodding  her  head,  "do  you  hear  this? 


36  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

Did  you  ever  expect  to  be  witness  to  such 
an  insulting  of  the  mother  that  bore  you? 
In  your  own  house  and  at  your  own  table!" 
and  then  she  fell  to  weeping  softly,  behind 
the  corner  of  a  small  lace  handkerchief. 

Perhaps  the  unusual  evidence  of  bravery 
of  speech  in  his  usually  submissively  silent 
young  wife  touched  some  sense  of  admira- 
tion in  Mr.  Mackirby;  perhaps  the  memory 
of  the  blow  that  he  had  given  her  gave  him 
a  tinge  of  shame,  perhaps  he  recalled  her 
attendance  upon  him  in  yesterday's  illness 
— perhaps  a  great  many  things,  but  at  all 
events  he  rose,  threw  down  his  napkin, 
walked  over  to  the  mantle,  took  a  cigar  from 
his  pocket  and  lighted  it,  and  after  the  fire 
was  well  started,  and  he  had  thrust  a  hand 
into  each  of  his  breeches  pockets,  he  said, 
addressing  himself  to  Thornely: 

"If  heaven  means  wife  and  mother-in-law 
for  me,  I  prefer  to  be  excused!  Just  fancy 
this  accompaniment  to  one's  meals  on  an 
average  of  once  or  twice  in  a  week  the  year 
round!  I  say,  Bonnie,  you  go  up  to  the 
library  and  write  mother  out  her  check.  It 
is  a  big  one,  but  it  will  do  you  no  harm  to 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  37 

sacrifice  some  bonnets  and  gowns,  and  per- 
haps their  loss  will  teach  you  to  guard  that 
too  out- spoken  tongue  of  yours.  Come  on, 
Jack,  it  is  quite  time  that  we  were  starting. ' ' 


38  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

The  twilight  was  fading  into  the  gloom  of 
night,  as  Mrs.  Mackirby  sat  in  the  school- 
room with  her  children  gathered  about  her. 
The  two  older  girls  were  on  footstools  at  her 
side,  and  baby  Bonnie  was  cuddled  into  her 
mother's  arms,  her  head  pillowed  upon 
her  mother's  breast. 

"Mother,  dear,"  said  Marion,  the  oldest, 
"tell  us  about  the  time  that  you  had  the 
tableaux  at  school,  and  most  about  the  ones 
that  you  took  part  in. " 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Mackirby,  "once  upon  a 
time — "  "Mother,"  said  eight-year-old 
Esther,  breaking  in  upon  the  recital,  "Parks 
says  that  her  cousin,  Bridget  Hogan's  second 
cousin's  uncle  was  named  Patrick  Hennesy 
and  that  he  went  over  in  the  steerage  to 
America  and  that  he  joined  a  great  Indian 
society.  What  is  the  name  of  it,  sister?" 

' '  Tammany  Braves. ' ' 

"Yes.  Too  Many  Braves— that's  it! 
And,  mother,  he  comes  back  to  Ireland  now 
on  visits,  and  he  scatters  gold !  And  Parks 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  39 

says  that  he's  a  real  blooded  American 
gentleman !  that  he  keeps  his  hat  on  all  the 
time!  Parks  says  he  wouldn't  take  it  off  to 
her  Majesty!  And  she  says  the 'Queen's 
Own'  daren't  lay  a  finger  on  him  to  make 
him!" 

"Oh,  never  mind  what  Parks  says, 
Esther,"  says  Marion,  reprovingly.  "Let 
mother  tell  about  the  tableaux." 

"Well,"  proceeded  Mrs.  Mackirby,  "some 
very  beautiful  tableaux  were  arranged." 

"Mother,"  breaks  in  Esther  again,  "did 
your  grandfather  come  over  from  Ireland 
in  the  steerage  to  America?  and  did  he  get 
to  be  a  boss?  And  is  that  the  way  you  came 
to  have  all  the  money  to  take  care  of  us  and 
grandmother  and  Uncle  Fred  and  Uncle 
Dick?" 

"I  take  care  of  grandmother  and  Uncle 
Fred  and  Uncle  Dick !  Who  told  you  so?" 

"I  did,"  says  Marion,  looking  up  into  her 
mother's  face. 

"I  was  over  at  grandmother's  the  other 
day,  and  she  fell  asleep,  and  Kittie,  her 
maid,  asked  me  if  I  would  be  a  good 
girl,  and  go  and  sit  behind  the  window- 
curtain  and  be  as  quiet  and  still  as  a  mouse, 


40  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

until  she  came  back.  So  I  said  yes, 
I  would,  and  in  a  little  while  Kittie  went 
away,  and  in  a  little  while  more  Uncle  Fred 
came  in,  and  grandma  woke  up;  but  I 
staid  behind  the  curtain,  because  I  had 
promised  Kittie  that  I  would,  and  it  did 
seem  as  if  they — grandma  and  Uncle  Fred — 
would  never  stop  talking.  Uncle  Fred  said 
he  believed  father's  habit  was  getting 
worse  and  worse,  and  he  was  sure  it 
would  get  him  some  day,  and  then  that  even 
the  squaw  couldn't  pull  him  through.  What 
is  a  habit,  mother,  and  who  is  the  squaw? 
And  grandmother  called  father  a  poor,  dear 
boy,  and  said  who  could  blame  him !  And 
Uncle  Fred  said  father  was  heavily  insure ! 
What  does  heavily  insure  mean,  mother? 
And  he  said  the  police  was  all  made  out  for 
the  brats,  and  he  said  that  the  squaw's  dot 
was  fixed  in  the  same  way,  and  that  when 
father  was  drug  drunk  he  had  made  him 
write  a  good  thing  on  a  paper,  and  that  the 
rest  of  the  squaw's  money  she  could  do  as 
she  liked  with  if  she  wasn't  trapped.  And 
that  as  soon  as  William  was  dead  she  would 
marry  her  sweetheart  Jack.  What  did  they 
mean,  mother?  I  couldn't  understand 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  41 

much,  but  I  seemed  to  know  that  they  were 
talking  about  you  and  your  money. ' ' 

"You  were  quite  mistaken,  dear,"  said 
Mrs.  Mackirby,  as  she  tenderly  smoothed 
the  soft-braided  hair. 

"You  did  not  hear  Uncle  Fred  and 
grandma  say  these  things.  I  will  tell 
you  what  happened.  You  fell  asleep 
behind  the  window-curtains!  Don't  you 
remember  the  odd  things  that  Alice  in 
Wonderland  dreamed  about  the  March  hare 
and  the  mad  hatter,  and  the  rest?  And 
you  know  she  was  lying  all  the  time 
dreaming  on  her  sister's  lap. " 

"I  don't  think  I  was  asleep!"  says  Marion, 
gravely.  "And  besides,  mother,  I  have 
heard  them  talk  about  you  before.  I  have 
heard  them  say  that " 

But  her  mother's  hand  was  put  gently  over 
her  lips.  "Never  mind  what  they  say,  or 
have  said,  my  little  daughter.  It  is  wrong 
to  listen  to  what  is  not  intended  for  our 
ears;  it  is  still  more  wrong  to  repeat  that 
which  we  have  heard.  And  now  listen,  and 
don't  interrupt  me  again  until  I  have  quite 
finished  my  story  about  the  tableaux  we  gave 
in  the  dear  homeland  across  the  sea. ' ' 


42  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

But  Bonnie  Mackirby  did  think  of  what 
Marion  had  said  to  her.  She  thought  of  it 
all  the  evening,  as  she  sat  in  her  box  at  her 
husband's  side  at  the  play;  she  thought  of 
it  through  what  seemed  to  her  the  intermin- 
able hours  of  a  night.  When  she  met  her  hus- 
band at  the  breakfast-table  next  morning, 
she  was  dressed  for  the  street,  and  she  told 
him  that  she  was  going  to  take  the  morning 
train  to  London. 

Mr.  Mackirby  was  interested  in  his 
"Times,"  and  acknowledged  her  offer  of 
information  by  gruntingly  remarking  that 
he  "supposed  it  meant  a  fresh  supply  of 
bonnets  and  frocks. ' ' 

So  Mrs.  Mackirby,  having  finished  her 
coffee,  went  out,  and  walking  to  the  station, 
took  a  train  and  arrived  in  due  time  at 
her  destination. 

Taking  a  cab  she  directed  the  man  to  drive 
her  to  a  quarter  of  the  city  occupied  by 
one  of  the  prominent  government  offices. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  43 

On  reaching  the  gray  building  she  paid 
and  dismissed  the  cab,  mounted  the  steps, 
and  was  about  to  enter  when  she  came 
face  to  face  with  an  old  gentleman,  evi- 
dently on  his  way  to  a  much -coronated 
coupe"  that  was  drawn  up  before  the  door. 
This  old  gentleman  bore  evidence  in  his 
furrowed  face,  in  his  carriage  and  bearing, 
of  birth  and  breeding.  And  the  timid 
woman,  whose  heart  was  beating  wildly 
with  the  daringness  of  her  undertaking,  had 
an  impulse  to  speak  to  him. 

"Pardon  me,"  she  said,  slowly  (for  it  was 
hard  for  her  to  utter  words),  "but  could  you 
tell  me  at  what  hour  it  would  be  possible  for 
me  to*fmd  the  Honorable  Lord  Blank  Blank- 
shire  in  his  office?" 

She  had  raised  her  veil,  and  was  looking 
the  old  gentleman  straight  in  the  face.  He 
lifted  his  hat. 

"I  am  the  man  you  name,"  he  said, 
gravely,  and  looking  a  second  time  into  her 
face.  "I  am  at  your  service.  Will  you 
come  with  me?" 

He  stepped  aside,  still  hat  in  hand,  for  her 
to  precede  him  across  the  threshold;  then 
preceding  her  he  led  the  way  through  a 


44  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

series  of  busy  rooms,  and  paused  before  a 
door  at  which  stood  a  liveried  servant. 

' '  Do  not  allow  me, ' '  said  the  gentleman  to 
the  servant,  "to  be  disturbed.  This  way, 
madame. ' ' 

Once  within  the  handsome  room  he  drew  a 
chair  for  his  guest,  and  when  she  was  seated 
he  took  one  himself.  He  saw  that  the  beau- 
tiful young  face  was  troubled ;  that  it  was 
difficult  for  her  to  secure  sufficient  control  to 
speak  calmly,  so  he  said  some  conventional 
things  about  the  recent  unusual  weather, 
and  that  he  feared  the  continual  dampness 
would  affect  the  health  of  the  city;  would 
perhaps  be  productive  of  loss  to  trade.  As 
he  talked  he  noted  a  tinge  of  color  coming 
back  to  the  fair  skin  with  a  real  pleasure, 
and  a  pity  for  her  sorrow  (though  it  was 
unknown  to  him)  was  strong  within  him. 

"You  do  not  know  me,"  she  said  at  last, 
"and  for  reasons  which  I  will  try  to  explain, 
I  should  not  have  made  myself  known  to  you 
if  there  had  been  any  other  help  this  side  of 
heaven.  I  never  wished  until  last  night  to 
be  a  Roman  Catholic.  I  then  envied  those 
who  when  their  minds  are  burdened  and 
heavy  laden,  could  go  and  pour  out  their 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  45 

cares  and  troubles  and  perplexities  into  some 
human  ear,  with  the  blessed  assurance  that 
their  thoughts  and  words  were  as  sealed 
books  to  the  one  who  listened,  his  only 
mission  in  listening  being  to  pour  comfort  and 
peace  upon  the  downcast  and  downtrodden ; 
to  make  them  look  up,  and  see  not  the  dark- 
ness, but  the  light. 

"I  have  always  said  my  prayers,  but  I 
never  prayed  until  last  night.  I  had  to  find 
God.  And  my  poor  tossed  soul  finally 
reached  somewhere  a  place  that  for  a  better 
word  I  will  call  home,  and  then,  my  lord,  I 
repeated  over  and  over  this  childish  request, 
'Find  me  one  friend!  one  friend!  one  friend!' 
and  as  I  knelt,  saying  again  and  again  this 
childish  petition,  your  name  came  to  me, 
and  I  seemed  to  understand  that  it  was  Our 
Father  who  had  put  it  in  my  mind.  I  was 
afraid  to  go  to  sleep,  lest  it  should  slip  away 
from  me  (my  mind  is  very  weary,  my  lord, 
and  my  recollection  is  less  keen  than  it  used 
to  be).  So  I  kept  repeating  your  name  over 
till  day  and  then  I  came  to  you.  I  am 
here!" 

No  tears,  no  trembling;  a  parched,  hungry 
soul,  looking  up  at  him  through  sad,  sad 


46  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

eyes.  His  keen  gray  eyes  felt  a  mist  before 
them;  this  man  of  iron  nerve,  this  states- 
man, noted  for  his  force,  will,  and  haughty 
reserve. 

He  said  gently  as  though  to  a  child  whom 
he  cherished,  "Do  not  doubt  that  Our  Father 
guided  you  in  this  decision,  and  speak  to  me 
freely.  My  time  and  my  earnest  attention 
are  at  your  service. " 

It  was  then  that  the  storm  broke.  The 
tortured  soul  bowed  her  head  within  her 
hands  and  sobbed  such  sobs  as  only  come 
when  one  who  has  endured  a  life's  hell 
bravely  is  lifted  up,  and  breathes  the  air  of 
mercy,  which  is  a  bit  of  heaven  come  down 
to  earth. 

He  said  no  word  to  her  of  comfort — he 
took  a  book  from  the  table  and  began  to 
read ;  he  never  looked  toward  her ;  he  seemed 
quite  unconscious  of  her  presence ;  but  she 
knew  this  was  not  really  so,  she  felt  his 
strong  unspoken  sympathy,  and  at  last  she 
spoke,  and  at  the  sound  of  her  voice  he 
laid  down  his  book,  but  he  did  not  look  at 
her;  he  listened. 

"It  is  a  rather  long  story,"  she  said, 
"and  in  order  that  I  may  justify  myself 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  47 

in  forcing  my  affairs  upon  your  time 
and  attention,  I  want  to  tell  you  that  which 
I  think  no  one  else  in  England  knows — that 
is,  that  I  am,  through  my  father's  family, 
lineally  descended  from  a  certain  Lord  Blank 
Blankshire,  who  was  sent  by  the  Crown  to 
New  England  to  fill  an  official  position  in 
Colonial  days.  My  father,  my  grandfather, 
my  great-grandfather  were  all  intensely 
patriotic  Americans,  and  for  some  rea- 
sons best  known  to  themselves  they  made 
this  fact  of  caste  as  much  a  matter  of  oblivion 
as  possible.  I  do  not  think  my  mother, 
(for  whom  everything  representing  a 
title  had  a  powerful  fascination),  possessed 
the  slightest  clue  to  this  ancestral  link  of  my 
father's.  The  story,  or  history  of  genealog- 
ical record,  he  left  under  seal  to  me,  his 
only  heir,  to  be  opened  when  I  was  twenty- 
five.  With  this  record  was  an  old  ring — it 
seems  to  be  emblematic."  She  took  off  her 
glove,  and  pulled  from  her  finger  a  strange 
circlet  of  beaten  gold.  Upon  its  wide  outer 
surface  in  enamels  there  was  a  triangle 
with  the  figure  '32'  in  it,  and  pillars,  squares, 
and  other  Masonic  emblems.  She  then 
pointed  to  the  inside  of  the  ring  in  which 


48  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

was  engraved  the  arms  of  the  Blankshires, 
and  these  words,  in  old  English  lettering, 
"Defende  thyne  owne  to  the  deathe. " 

The  old  man  took  from  his  own  finger  this 
ring's  mate  and  laid  them  side  by  side;  then 
he  took  her  ring,  raised  it  to  his  lips,  and 
slipped  it  back  upon  her  ringer. 

"If,"  he  said,  slowly,  "at  anytime  during 
my  life,  you  need  my  help,  send  this 
ring  to  me,  and  should  trouble  come  to  you 
when  I  am  gone,  my  oldest  son  will  under- 
stand. This  circlet  possesses  a  double 
power — it  bears  the  emblems  of  Masonry 
without,  it  holds  the  motto  of  our  house 
within." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  49 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

"My  lord,"  said  Mrs.  Mackirby,  "I 
wish  to  exact  a  promise  from  you,  that 
for  the  present,  you  will  keep  silence 
regarding  my  visit  and  all  that  you 
have  discovered  through  it,  and  that 
you  will  never,  under  any  stress  of  circum- 
stances or  conditions  (no  matter  how  urgent 
they  may  be),  unless  I  give  you  permission, 
seem  to  have  ever  heard  of  me." 

"And  why  this  request,  little  cousin?" 
said  the  old  gentleman.  "I  have  a  good  wife, 
who  would  gladly  welcome  you  as  kins- 
woman, and  daughters  who  would  enjoy 
meeting  you,  and  re-opening  a  discussion 
pro  and  con  as  to  the  causes  that  led  up  to 
our  estrangement  through  and  by  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution. ' ' 

But  Mrs.  Mackirby  shook  her  head.  "My 
lord, ' '  she  said,  ' '  I  have  known  of  this  rela- 
tionship for  more  than  a  year !  And  I  have 
not  breathed  it  to  a  single  soul !  I  have  kept 
the  papers  sealed,  with  instructions  that  in 
4 


50  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

case  of  my  death  the  package  should  not  be 
opened  until  my  youngest  daughter  was  of 
age.  I  have  worn  the  ring  on  a  chain, 
about  my  neck,  having  had  a  jeweled  shell 
made  (like  a  locket)  to  fit  over  it.  And  I 
have  done  all  this  because  the  family  into 
which  I  have  married  would  not  appeal  to 
you  and  yours,  my  lord. 

"I  'was  married  when  I  was  scarcely 
sixteen,  to  Mr.  Mackirby;  he  was  then  in 
business  in  America ;  he  was  a  friend  of  my 
mother's  (my  father  was  dead).  My  mother 
was  ambitious  for  me,  her  only  child.  I  had 
a  large  fortune,  and  the  investments  made 
by  my  father  were  so  wise  that  the  income 
continues  to  grow.  I  was  a  very  childish 
girl,  my  lord,  very  inexperienced  and 
simple-hearted;  therefore  the  awakening  to 
a  realization  of  much  that  life  means 
was  a  shock,  from  which  I  shall  never 
recover.  My  husband  had  lived  nearly  fifty 
years  in  the  world  when  he  married  me, 
and  I  think  all  my  childish  expressions  of 
surprise  and  disapproval  were  most  annoy- 
ing and  distasteful  to  him.  My  mother  told 
me  that  Mr.  Mackirby's  family  were  people 
of  exalted  rank  and  fashion ;  that  his  grand- 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  51 

father,  William  Wiggins,  was  a  peer  of  the 
realm.  But  a  title  founded  on  excellent 
brewing  does  not  insure  to  the  brewer,  or 
his  heirs,  savoir-faire. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  discuss  the  father  of  my 
children,  my  lord,  or  his  relatives,  and  I 
should  not  have  said  so  much  as  this  did  I 
not  wish  you  to  understand  the  principal 
reason  for  my  being  here,  to  know  the  some- 
thing you  can,  I  feel -sure,  do  for  me." 

"I  appreciate  all  that  you  have  so  gra- 
ciously and  delicately  implied,  my  dear  Mrs. 
Mackirby, "  said  his  lordship,  "and  I  beg 
that  you  will  understand  me  as  not  being 
disloyal  or  discourteous  to  you  when  I  say 
that  I  entirely  agree  with  you  in  believing 
that  the  Mackirbys  are  not  desirable  addi- 
tions to  certain  forms  of  what  is  called  con- 
ventional life. 

"We  Blankshires  are  not,  as  you  probably 
know,  a  rich  family ;  our  names  are  seldom 
recorded  in  the  lists  of  those  who  frequent 
Vanity  Fair.  We  have  a  good,  ample 
income,  a  home  in  the  country  unincumbered 
by  debt,  its  grounds  are  kept  up,  its  tenantry 
self-respectful  and  thrifty,  its  cottages  clean, 
modern  and  sanitary.  We  have  a  shooting- 


52  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

lodge,  with  plenty  of  land  for  sport  and 
plenty  of  sport  on  the  land.  We  have  an 
old  town  house,  with  its  old  furniture, 
old  plate,  and  old  pictures,  and  in  town  and 
country  we  entertain  our  old  friends ;  and 
in  other  words,  we  Blankshires  live  the  lives 
of  old-fashioned  gentlemen  and  gentle- 
women. 

"We  have  never  had  a  scandal,  or  pro- 
duced a  sensation;  our  men  have  been 
upright,  decent,  and  God-fearing,  our 
women  modest,  moral  and  domestic.  True 
the  head  of  our  house  has  always  been 
assigned  to  some  place  of  governmental 
honor  and  trust,  but  then  we  have  been 
faithful  stewards;  so  the  honor  conferred 
upon  us  does  not  seem  to  have  been  mis- 
placed; all  this  to  show  you  why  I  so 
readily  comply  with  your  request,  but  it 
is  with  this  proviso:  that  you  will  never 
fail  to  let  me  be  of  service  to  you,  or  to 
your  children,  if  I  can." 

"I  thank  you,  my  lord,"  she  said.  "I 
think  we  perfectly  understand  each  other, 
and  now  to  come  to  my  particular  reason  for 
troubling  you.  My  husband,  my  lord,  is 
not,  I  fully  believe,  responsible  for  much 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  53 

that  he  says  and  does ;  he  has  been  a  dys- 
peptic for  many  years,  and  after  dosing 
himself  with  every  quack  medicine  that  he 
has  seen  advertised,  or  has  been  told  of,  he 
has  finally  come  to  taking  crude  arsenic; 
he  mixes  it,  in  ever-increasing  quantities,  in 
his  food  and  drink,  and  I  have  reason  to  be- 
lieve it  is  affecting  his  brain  as  much  as 
though  it  were  alcohol.  He  grows  more 
and  more  impatient  with  me ;  he  has  become 
a  monomaniac  on  the  subject  of  my  being 
an  American.  He  seems  to  believe  that  I 
induced  him  to  marry  me.  He  seems  to 
consider  that  I  have  no  rights  to  even  my 
own  independent  income. 

"The  Mackirby  family  have  an  intimate 
friend,  my  lord  (a  Mr.  Jack  Thornely),  who  I 
have  often  heard  them  say  is  related 
to  your  wife's  family.  This  man,  for 
what  purpose  I  cannot  say,  is  constantly 
forced  upon  me  as  escort  abroad,  as  com- 
panion in  my  own  home.  Not  long 
since,  my  lord,  he  (Mr.  Jack  Thornley)  com- 
pleted his  insulting  attentions  by  sending 
to  me,  through  my  maid,  an  unsealed  note. 
Its  written  contents  were  couched  in  the 
most  endearingly  familiar  terms.  It  told 


54  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

me  shameful  truths — truths,  my  lord, 
of  my  husband's  daily  life — it  offered 
me  opportunity  to  engage  in  liaisons  with 
this  friend  of  the  Mackirby  family.  I 
burned  the  note,  and  then,  my  husband 
coming  in,  I  was  unable  to  restrain  my 
pent-up  indignation.  Shame  kept  me  from 
speaking  of  the  insult  I  had  just  received, 
but  I  told  my  husband  that  I  should  divorce 
him  and  take  my  children.  Then  I  did  that 
which  I  was  heartily  sorry  for,  my  lord ;  I 
told  my  husband  that  I  had  supported  him 
and  his  family  for  ten  years,  and — "  she 
paused. 

"He  struck  you,"  said  the  old  gentleman. 
"He  struck  you  across  your  face." 

She  did  not  answer;  she  could  not. 

"That  same  afternoon,  my  lord,  I  went  to 
my  bank,  and  from  there  sent,  by  special 
messenger,  a  note  to  Mr.  Thornely  at  his 
club.  I  asked  him  to  meet  me  on  its  receipt 
at  a  respectable  hotel,  in  the  public  parlor. 

"He  was  there  when  I  reached  it,  and  I 
pleaded  with  him  never  to  come  to  my  house 
again.  I  asked  him  to  give  me  back 
the  note  that  I  had  written  to  him,  and  oh, 
my  lord,  he  asked  me  why  I  was  so  anxious 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  55 

to  retain  this  one  formal  epistle,  when  he 
had  in  his  possession  innumerable  love- 
letters  from  me,  he  said  he  would,  if  I 
attempted  to  thwart  his  coming  and  going, 
send  them  with  a  note  of  explanation  to 
my  husband.  My  lord,  I  never  wrote  that 
man  one  line  in  my  life,  except  the  note  I 
have  mentioned,  and  I  have  come  to  you  to 
ask  if  there  is  any  way  in  your  power  by 
which  you  can  remove  Mr.  Jack  Thornely 
from  Ploverlie." 

The  white-haired  gentleman  sat  looking 
down  at  his  desk  for  some  time  in  silence. 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  said  at  last,  "that  you 
asked  him  to  meet  you  at  the  hotel ;  it  was 
a  foolish  and  most  unwise  thing  to  do. 
Women,  young  and  old,  are  too  apt  to  be 
governed  by  impulse.  Dickens  never  gave 
a  better  piece  of  advice  than  that  which  he 
puts  into  Mr.  Meagle's  mouth,  when  he 
advises  Tattycorum  'to  count  five  and 
twenty, '  my  dear.  If  in  your  first  impulse 
you  had  stopped  to  count  five  and  twenty, 
you  wouldn't,  I  know  you  wouldn't,  have 
found  courage  to  do  such  an  unwifely  thing. 
Nay,  nay,  little  cousin;  don't  be  grieved; 
the  truest  friendship  and  the  most  loyal  is 


56  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

that  which  uncovers  its  real  thought. 
But  I  shall  make,  at  once,  an  arrangement 
to  send  my  wife's  nephew  to  look  after 
some  personal  business  of  mine  in  Wales. 
I  shall  take  him  completely  out  of  your 
life  and  he  never  shall  know  why  I  became 
interested  in  his  welfare. ' ' 

"I  wish,"  said  Bonnie  Mackirby,  rising, 
and  laying  her  hand  in  that  of  her  kins- 
man, "I  wish  that  you  might  understand  all 
that  the  simple  'I  thank  you'  that  I  now 
utter,  implies.  I  wish  you  might  know  all 
the  gratitude  that  is  in  my  heart!  Oh,  I 
wish  you  could  know. ' ' 

And  so  they  parted. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  57 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Twenty-four  hours  later  Mr.  Jack  Thorn ely 
and  Mr.  Frederick  Mackirby  sat  together 
in  an  alcove,  in  one  of  the  lounging-rooms 
of  the  Fraternity  Club.  Jack,  calm,  com- 
placent, and  nonchalant;  Frederick,  fussy, 
fuming  and  fidgety. 

"And  you  don't  know  how  this  sudden 
placing  of  you  by  your  uncle  came  about?" 
Frederick  said,  fixing  his  snake-like  eyes  on 
Jack's  face.  "It  seems  to  me  a  something 
resulting  from  more  than  mere  chance.  You 
couldn't  possibly  put  the  old  man  off  for  a 
few  weeks,  could  you?  It  is  a  pity  not  to 
finish  the  thing  up. ' ' 

"You  d d  fool!"  interrupted  Jack,  in  a 

pleasant,  cheerful,  jolly,  good-fellowship 
tone,  "you  don't  suppose,  do  you,  that  I  am 
going  to  lose  a  life-position,  which  entails 
little  work  and  a  good  income,  for  the  chance 
of  a  few  thousand  pounds  that  I  may  gain 
by  hunting  down  your  game  for  you?  You 
don't  think  for  a  holy  minute  that  I  would 


58  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

allow  myself  to  be  mixed  up  now  in  a  divorce 
scandal?  No,  sir!  I  burned  every  one  of 
those  letters  last  night.  I  burned  every 
trace  of  the  whole  business,  but  your  letters 
to  me;  for,  mark  you,  if  I  were  supposed  to 
have  been  diverting  myself  in  any  such 
direction,  the  sanctimonious  and  honorable 
mummied  kinsman  would  not  take  me  up 
with  a  pair  of  tongs. ' ' 

"But,"  said  Frederick,  "I  can't  get  it  out 
of  my  head  that  the  squaw  went  up  to  Lon- 
don for  some  purpose.  She  is  a  clever  one, 
Jack.  She  might  have  suspected  and  gone 
to  him." 

The  look  of  scorn  that  Jack  Thornely  cast 
upon  Frederick  had  its  effect  upon  that 
man;  he  winced  and  looked  out  of  the 
window. 

' '  Bonnie  Mackirby  go  to  the  office  and  ask 
for  Blankshire!  You  might  better  try  to 
convince  me  that  she  mounted  to  the  gates 
of  heaven  and  consulted  Saint  Peter.  The 
way  to  his  lordship's  official  presence  is  like 
the  way  of  the  transgressor,  it  is  hard  (to 
get  at) ;  it  is  hedged  about  with  letters  of 
introduction  and  appointment ;  it  is  a  matter 
of  ways  and  days  to  compass,  and  besides  a 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  59 

woman  that  lets  her  husband  beat  her,  and 
disgrace  her ;  that  lets  her  relatives  by  mar- 
riage insult  her,  and  live  off  her  bounty, 
hasn't  enough  spirit  to  do  more  than  make 
lotions  to  heal  her  bruises.  The  squaw  visit 
my  uncle!  Frederick,  I  have  long  since 
paid  you  the  compliment  of  being  the  clever- 
est knave  of  my  acquaintance;  but  I  did 
not  know  until  this  afternoon,  that  you 
were  the  biggest  fool,  as  well. ' ' 

"Well,"  said  Frederick,  more  meekly  and 
amiably  than  his  companion's  eulogy  would 
seem  to  merit,  "we  won't  go  into  further 
discussion.  All  that  you  can  do  for  me  now 
is  to  kindly  return  those  letters  which 
you  have  just  mentioned,  as  having  in 
your  possession." 

Jack  laughed.  "They  have  their  price," 
he  said,  slowly.  "If  you  cannot  pay  me 
for  them  your  sister-in-law  can.  I  will  take 
them  to  her  to-morrow  morning  unless  you 
redeem  them  this  evening  with  five  hundred 
pounds. 

"If  I  give  those  letters  to  Mrs.  Mackirby 
and  she  pays  me  for  them,  I  will  go  to  her 
husband,  and  so  help  me  God,  I  will  unfold 
to  him  all  your  damnable  plot!  I  will  con- 


60  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

fess  my  part  in  it,  and  brute  and  arsenic- 
eater  though  he  is,  he  will  collect  enough 
remnants  of  scattered  manhood  to  resent 
what  you  have  done  and  hope  to  do. 

' '  If  you  pay  me,  the  game,  so  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  is  still  yours  to  lose  or  win.  One 
woman  more  or  less  does  not  matter,  and 
what  you  do  with  her  is  nothing  to  me. 
What  I  want  is  five  hundred  pounds  for  the 
services  I  have  rendered  you  in  the  past; 
for  my  silence  in  the  future. ' ' 

"But  how  the  devil  am  I  to  get  the  money? 
Forging  love-letters  is  one  thing!  Forging 
a  check  is  another !  Now,  how  am  I  to  get 
this  five  hundred  pounds?" 

"That  is  a  matter  for  you  to  evolve,  my 
dear  fellow,  and  I  shall  do  myself  the  pleas- 
ure of  waiting  upon  you  for  your  answer — a 
pecuniary  answer — at,  say,  nine  this  evening. 
I  must  tear  myself  away  now.  There  are 
calls  to  make  and  notes  to  write,  for  Blank- 
shire  expects  me  to  report  for  duty  speedily. 

"Listen;  a  suggestion;  it  may  be  helpful ! 
Mrs.  Mackirby  drew  a  check  for  five  hundred 
pounds  for  your  mother  the  other  day.  She, 
your  mother,  has  been  to  the  bank  and  has 
had  it  cashed.  Probably,  like  a  great  many 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  61 

other  dear  old  ladies,  she  has  taken  it  home 
and  hidden  it  away  in  the  bolster-case,  or  a 
stocking-foot,  or  under  the  carpet;  get  her 
to  tell  you  where  it  is,  and  then  it  will  be  an 
easy  matter  for  you  to  transfer  it  from  its 
hiding-place  to  me. ' ' 


62  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Madame  Mackirby  was  in  a  particularly 
happy  mood.  She  had  heard,  through  her 
second  son  Richard,  or  Dick,  as  he  was 
familiarly  called,  that  Mr.  Jack  Thornely 
had  been  made  the  recipient  of  a  good 
income,  with  a  trifling  amount  of  work  at- 
tached to  it.  But  Mr.  Jack  Thornely's  inter- 
ests for  better  or  worse  had  nothing  to  do 
with  Madame  Mackirby's  present  buoyancy. 

She  was  gloating  over  the  thought  of  the 
sorrow  this  transplanting  of  the  man  in 
question  would  bring  to  her  daughter-in-law, 
whom,  she  had  been  brought  to  believe  (by 
her  son  Frederick,  by  her  own  maid 
Kittie,  and  by  Mrs.  Mackirby's  maid,  Eliza- 
beth) ,  was  carrying  on  a  flagrant  flirtation 
with  Jack.  She  really  should  have  been 
mourning,  instead  of  rejoicing  at  Jack's 
going,  but  in  her  present  excitement  she 
did  not  realize  how  much  she  would  miss  the 
scandalous  reports  that  had  been  served  up 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  63 

to  her  with  her  afternoon's  cup  of  tea.  These 
interesting  recitals  had  been  better  than  a 
tonic  to  her  poor  old  body,  but  now  she  only 
knew  or  believed  that  she  knew  that 
William's  wife  was  suffering;  that  her 
heart  would  ache ;  that  she  would  shed  tears 
and  perhaps,  oh  joyous  thought,  that  she 
would  pine  away,  and  lose  flesh  and  color. 
She  felt  herself  growing  quite  juvenile  and 
kittenish  at  such  a  prospect,  and  she 
hummed  what  she  intended  to  be  a  tune, 
which  proved  itself  a  something  more 
resembling  in  sound  a  death-rattle  than 
anything  else. 

Then  both  her  boys  had  come  to  pay  her 
a  visit — they  were  in  her  sitting-room,  and 
Bonnie  was  the  theme  of  her  mother-in-law's 
conversation,  and  what  so  natural  as  that 
from  Bonnie,  Frederick  should  be  brought 
to  think  of  sneak-thieves,  and  the  successes 
they  were  having  in  private  houses,  and  how 
powerless  the  police  seemed  to  be  to  stop 
their  depredations. 

"Of  course,  mother,"  said  Frederick,  with 
a  reverential  sort  of  gentleness  in  his  voice 
and  manner,  "you  never  leave  your  jewels 
out  of  the  safe,  and  you  only  keep  sufficient 


64  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

money  in  your  purse  for  ordinary  daily 
demands?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said;  she  "was  very 
particular;  very  careful;"  but  she  made  a 
motion  to  Frederick,  unseen  by  Dick,  to  the 
effect  that  he  was  to  change  the  subject,  and 
that  she  would  explain  something  to  him 
when  they  were  alone. 

Frederick  was  her  favorite  child ;  she  ex- 
plained this  by  saying  that  they  had  so  much 
in  common.  Now  on  this  particular  afternoon 
Richard  was  obliging — he  got  up  and  without 
the  ceremony  of  a  leave-taking  made  himself 
conspicuous  through  his  absence. 

Richard  was  a  conundrum  to  his  family, 
from  the  fact  that  while  he  lived  at  home  he 
kept  his  affairs — his  goings  and  comings — 
strictly  to  himself,  and  never  expressed  the 
slightest  interest  in  what  concerned  anybody 
else.  He  was  said  to  be  "blase","  "born 
tired,"  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  It  was 
said  that  "everything  bored  him,  and  he 
bored  everybody. ' '  At  all  events,  he  rarely 
talked,  and  seldom  listened.  He  slept  a 
great  part  of  his  time,  cared  nothing  for 
books,  seldom  played  cards  or  discussed 
politics.  He  was  very  fond  of  horses,  and 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  65 

had  the  reputation  among  horsey  people  of 
having  horse  sense  and  a  betting-head.  He 
was  very  successful  in  his  racing  ventures, 
and  in  this  way  was,  with  his  own  small 
income  as  a  nest-egg,  able  to  be  quite 
independent  of  any  support  from  his  mother, 
which  meant  taking  charity  from  his  Ameri- 
can sister-in-law. 

Another  thing,  in  the  family  discussions 
and  conversations  concerning  "William's 
wife"  he  took  no  part,  and  because  silence 
was  the  habit  of  his  life  his  mother  and 
brother  never  doubted  that  his  feelings  and 
sentiments,  in  this  respect,  accorded  with 
their  own. 

As  soon  as  Richard's  footsteps  were  heard 
going  down  the  stairs,  Frederick  fell  fiercely 
upon  his  mother. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  Frederick 
began,  fixing  his  eyes  on  the  withered, 
trembling  creature  before  him,  "do  you 
mean  to  tell  me,  mother,  that  you  took  all 
the  money  Bonnie  gave  you  the  check  for 
out  of  the  bank?  Now  you  need  not  go  to 
whining  and  crying!  It  won't  touch  me! 
Not  a  bit  of  it!  How  many  times  have  I 
told  you  that  it  was  impossible  to  trust  the 
5 


66  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

best  servants  that  ever  lived?  Now  speak 
up!  Where  is  that  money?" 

"Frederick,  my  dear  boy,  do  not  be  so 
severe!"  said  the  old  lady,  with  a  piteous 
second-childhood  quiver  of  grief  on  her  lips. 
"I  took  it  all  out  because  at  my  time  of  life 
one  never  can  tell  what  might  happen,  and 
if  I  should  die  suddenly  the  law  would 
divide  everything  into  three  parts.  Now 
William  does  not  want  anything,  and  Dick 
does  not  need  anything ;  but  you,  dear,  with 
your  delicate,  refined  and  expensive  tastes, 
do,  and  I  thought  I  would  give  it  all  to  you 
for  a  birthday  gift.  Don't  you  see,  dear?" 

"Not  a  bit  of  an  excuse,  mother!"  said 
Frederick,  more  severely  if  possible  than 
before,  "but  the  question  is,  where  have  you 
hidden  the  money?  Let  me  take  it  and  put 
it  in  the  safe  for  to-night,  and  to-morrow 
morning  I  will  go  with  you  and  deposit  it." 

"Oh,  it's  all  right.  I  assure  you  it's  all 
right,  dear,"  she  said,  more  cheerfully.  "I 
was  very  clever,  and  I'll  tell  you  about  it. 
When  Kittie  went  down  for  my  tea  (the  day 
that  I  brought  it  home)  I  pulled  out  the 
drawers  of  my  closet  and  made  a  ladder  of 
them,  and  I  climbed  up  and  put  the  bank 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  67 

notes  on  the  top  shelf,  in  the  corner  under 
the  paper." 

Frederick  went  at  once  to  the  place 
designated,  and  he  found  the  crisp  bills 
where  his  mother  had  put  them.  He 
leisurely  tucked  them  under  his  cuff  and  up 
into  his  shirt-sleeve. 

''They  are  gone,  mother,"  he  called  out  to 
her;  "not  a  trace  of  them  on  the  shelf.  In 
all  probability  you  dreamed  that  you  put 
them  there.  You  are  always  dozing  after 
you  have  been  out  in  the  air.  You  probably 
dropped  them  in  the  street  or  left  them  in 
the  cab. "  By  this  time  he  was  back  and  by 
her  side.  "Oh,  mother,  mother!  when  will 
you  ever  learn  to  leave  your  money  matters  to 
me?  I  won't  scold  you,  dear — scolding  does 
no  good ;  but  do  try  to  learn  a  lesson  from 
this  experience.  Now,  won't  you,  mother?" 

The  shriveled  arms  wound  themselves 
about  her  boy's  neck,  and  she  laid  her 
plumpered  and  painted  and  powdered  face 
against  his. 

"My  darling,"  she  said,  "how  patient  you 
are  with  your  foolish  old  mother,  how  gentle 
and  kind.  The  loss  of  the  money  is  more 


68  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

than  repaid  to  me  through  this  evidence  of 
filial  devotion. ' ' 

Frederick  patted  the  thin,  dyed  hair  gently. 
He  had  a  slim,  delicate-fingered,  flexible 
hand. 

"Well,  well,  mother,"  he  said,  "we  won't 
break  our  hearts  over  the  loss,  even  if  five 
hundred  pounds  does  not  grow  on  every 
bush;  so  promise  me,  dear,  promise  me 
really  and  truly  to  keep  this  matter  a  secret 
between  you  and  me.  If  you  were  to  tell 
Kittie  it  would  go  straight  to  Elizabeth,  and 
Bonnie  would  find  it  out  and  tell  William, 
and  he  might  get  it  into  his  fast  softening 
brain  that  you  were  growing  childish  and 
not  to  be  trusted,  and  if  he  believed  that  he 
would  order  the  squaw  to  dole  out  money  to 
us,  and  where  would  I  be  then,  mother? 
You  will  be  silent  for  my  sake,  won't  you?" 

"Yes,  my  precious  boy,"  said  Madame 
Mackirby,  humbly.  "What  wouldn't  a 
mother  be  willing  to  do  for  such  a  son?" 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  69 


CHAPTER   XI. 

Mr.  William  Mackirby  sat  alone  in  his 
private  office  one  pleasant  day  at  the  noon 
hour.  He  was  doing  rather  an  unusual 
thing  for  a  gentleman  of  independent  means 
to  trouble  himself  about,  particularly  when 
his  home  was  only  a  short  distance  in  one 
direction,  his  club  only  a  short  distance  in 
another. 

He  was  cooking  something  that  looked  like 
a  farina,  or  white  cornmeal  porridge,  over 
an  oil  stove.  A  tap  was  heard  upon  the 
door,  and  before  he  could  rise  or  say  "Come 
in, "  a  burly  figure  of  a  seafaring  man  was 
framed  in  the  open  doorway,  and  a  gruff, 
hearty  voice  was  calling  out:  "Hello, 
Mackirby,  old  man!  How  goes  it?" 

A  gleam  of  real  pleasure  lit  up  Mr. 
Mackirby 's  fishy  eyes.  "Well,  captain,"  he 
cried,  leaving  his  chair  and  coming  toward 
the  man  with  both  hands  extended,  "I  never 
expected  to  see  you  again.  Where  did  you 
blow  from?" 


70  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

"Oh,"  said  the  big,  cheerful,  red-faced 
tar,  "from  here  and  there  and  everywhere. 
The  bark  'Blanche'  is  like  all  the  rest  of  her 
sex — contrary  and  uncertain.  See?  Ha,  ha!" 

"But,"  says  Mr.  Mackirby,  infected  into 
a  sort  of  jollity,  "what,  I  repeat  again, 
brings  you  here?" 

"A  cargo,"  answered  the  captain;  "it's 
unloaded,  and  I'm  going  to  start  for  home 
(wind  and  waves  permitting)  to-morrow.  I 
never  feel  a  bit  of  comfort  in  foreign  parts, 
Mackirby;  I  never  can  draw  a  full,  deep 
breath  under  any  monarchy.  No  Yankee 
ever  can — it's  against  the  grain ;  but  I  didn't 
want  to  be  so  near  and  not  drop  in  to  ask 
after  the  pretty  little  American  wife,  my 
townswoman,  and  the  babies." 

"Mrs.  Mackirby  is  quite  well,  and  there  is 
another  child.  There  are  three  little  girls 
now,  and  I  hope  you  can  find  time  enough 
to  go  up  to  the  house — it's  only  a  short  walk 
from  here — and  pay  them  a  visit.  Mrs. 
Mackirby  will  be  very  glad  to  see  you  and 
show  you  the  babies." 

"Well,"  said  the  captain,  taking  out  a  huge 
watch  and  studying  its  face  as  though  he 
looked  to  it  not  only  to  tell  him  the  time, 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  71 

but  to  decide  his  acceptance  or  declination 
of  engagements,  "well,  I  guess  I  will.  I 
have  nothing  pressing  to  do  for  two  or  three 
hours.  Yes,  I'll  go  up;  but  say,  William, 
what  are  you  puttering  with?" 

Mr.  Mackirby  stopped  stirring  the  por- 
ridge, blew  out  the  flame,  and  poured  the 
white  mixture  he  had  been  cooking  from 
the  saucepan  into  a  deep  saucer;  then  he 
took  a  little  paper  out  of  his  vest-pocket, 
opened  it  carefully,  and  deposited  its  con- 
tents into  the  porridge. 

"You  would  be  horrified,"  he  now  said, 
turning  to  the  captain,  "if  you  knew  what 
this  powder  was  that  I  have  just  been  sprink- 
ling into  the  dish. " 

"No,  I  wouldn't,"  answered  the  captain. 
"Why  should  I?  There  is  no  harm  in  white 
pepper." 

"But  this  isn't  pepper.     It    is    arsenic!" 

"Good  God,  man!"  cried  the  captain, 
turning  pale  under  his  tan,  "that  is  a  deadly 
poison!" 

"Deadly  to  some,  life-giving  to  others, 
my  dear  captain.  We  all  take  poison  in 
some  form,  some  more,  some  less,  and 
always  with  beneficial  results.  Now  I  have, 


7*  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

by  years  of  cautious  administration,  accus- 
tomed myself  to  eat,  with  perfect  safety,  a 
quantity  of  arsenic  mixed  with  my  food. 
That  gives  me  new  life,  and  yet  would 
undoubtedly  kill  you ;  but  taste  a  little  bit  of 
this  porridge.  A  little  couldn't  hurt  you." 

"No,  I  thank  you,"  said  the  captain. 
"Plain,  wholesome  vituals  are  good  enough 
for  me.  I  don't  meddle  with  stuff  that  I 
don't  understand  what  it's  given  for  and 
what  it's  going  to  do  to  my  insides,  which 
are,  I  am  free  to  confess,  unknown  continents 
to  me.  Of  course,  there  are  a  few  things  I 
can  tend  up  to  personally.  If  I  have  a  pain 
in  my  pit,  I  swig  Jamaica  ginger,  strong 
and  hot,  and  maybe  I  plaster  on  wet 
mustard.  If  I  get  a  queer  feeling  in  my 
throat,  I  chuck  in  camphor  water ;  if  it  gets 
further  down  and  there's  a  cough,  I  try 
onion  syrup  (prime,  sir,  prime).  But  beyond 
the  symptoms  I  have  named,  what's  left  of 
darkest  Africa  is  not  to  be  mentioned  side 
by  side  with  my  ignorance  of  what's  under 
my  skin.  So,  when  I  feel  anything  grum- 
bling or  gnawing,  I  go  to  a  regular  out  and 
out  pilgarlic,  one  of  the  kind  that  has  a 
pretty  typewriter,  and  a  boy  in  buttons,  and 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  73 

a  reception  room,  and  rooms  with  several 
other  names  that  you  have  to  pass  through 
before  you  get  to  the  man  you  are  after. 
And  then  he  asks  you:  'Where  is  it?'  and 
you  tell  him  that  she  is  here,  or  there,  or 
somewhere  else,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  of 
course  he  puts  one  of  them  barometers  under 
your  tongue,  and  counts  your  wrist,  and 
thumps  your  chest,  and  listens  to  your  back, 
and  then  stops  and  looks  d — d  wise.  Then 
he  writes  out  some  Latin  words  on  a  paper, 
and  he  says,  'Take  this  to  the  druggist, '  and 
you  says,  'How  much?'  and  he  says,  with  a 
gentle  sigh,  as  though  he  was  devoting  his 
life  to  charity  and  found  it  a  tax  on  his 
constitution,  'Ten  dollars,  if  you  please.' 
And  you  give  it  to  him,  and  he  bows,  and 
touches  a  bell  and  says  to  some  unseen  lis- 
tener, 'Next.'  And  as  you  pass  out,  another 
ten  dollars  walks  in — it  may  be  in  petticoats 
or  it  may  be  in  trousers. 

"Then  you  go  to  the  druggist  and  you 
hand  him  the  paper,  and  he  says,  'All  right, 
sir, '  and  he  leaves  you  alone  with  the  bottles 
and  the  smells,  and  then  he  comes  back  and 
says,  'A  dollar  and  a  half,  please;  take  as 
directed,  and  be  sure  to  shake.'  Now, 


74  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

William,  like  as  not  the  shake  that  I  have  to 
take  has  poison  in  it;  but  I  don't  know  it, 
and  don't  want  to  know  it. " 

The  captain  here  came  to  an  abrupt  pause 
and  he  began  to  look  confused  and  uncom- 
fortable, as  we  see  children  do  who  have 
bravely  spoken  their  pieces  and  then  fall  into 
a  stage  fright  and  so  do  not  seem  to  be  able 
to  make  their  bow  to  the  audience  or  get  back 
to  their  seats. 

The  captain  fumbled  with  his  hat  for  a 
minute  and  then  he  said  (apropos  of  nothing)  : 
"Jim  Wilkins,  my  first  mate,  got  married 
last  week.  He  married  a  pretty  young  Irish 
girl.  He's  old  enough  to  be  her  father; 
but  then  there  is  no  fool  like  an  old  fool. " 
Here  an  idea  struck  him  of  the  personality 
of  his  remark,  and  he  took  recourse  in  his 
hat.  He  again  found  inspiration  there,  and 
it  was  happier. 

"My  old  first  mate,  Joe  Fay  the  one 
that  used  to  be  with  me  when  I  shipped 
cotton  for  you,  is  dead.  He  was  just  about 
your  build  and  complexion,  and  he  went 
off  one  day  with  a  stroke  of  apoplexy." 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Mackirby  had  eaten  all  the 
porridge,  even  to  permitting  himself  the 


BONNIE   MACKIRBY.  75 

inelegant  privilege  of  scraping  the  dish. 
There  was  a  pink  flush  on  his  cheeks  now, 
and  his  eyes  were  very  bright.  "Well,  old 
fellow,"  he  said,  "now  do  go  up  to  the 
house,  Mrs.  Mackirby  will  be  more  than 
delighted  to  see  you. " 


76  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

"So  these  are  your  little  girls,  Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby.  Well,  they  are  as  pretty  as  pictures, 
and  as  fat  as  porpoises.  As  for  you, "  said  the 
captain,  with  an  honest  disregard  of  his 
hostess'  vanity,  "I  never  would  know  you  if 
I  met  you  on  the  street.  I  don't  believe," 
said  the  captain,  studying  her  earnestly, 
"that  the  English  climate  agrees  with  you 
any  better  than  it  does  with  me. " 

"It  was  very  kind  of  you,"  said  Mrs. 
Mackirby,  "to  come.  It  is  most  delightful 
to  see  anyone  from  home,  and  you  won't 
mind  if  I  ask  you  some  questions,  will 
you?" 

"Lord,  no!"  said  the  good-natured  sailor, 
taking  a  chair  and  getting  all  three  of  the 
little  girls  upon  his  knees.  "Now,  if  there  is 
anything  you'd  like  to  know  about  lineals  or 
collaterals  or  family  trees,  I'm  primed.  The 
whole  country  over  yonder  has  suddenly 
waked  up  to  a  sense  of  the  honor  it  means 
to  be  a  son,  grandson,  or  great-grandson  of 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  77 

some  man  who  fought  in  the  American 
Revolution.  If  you  will  believe  it,  down  in 
our  cemetery  there  isn't  a  lichen  left  on  a 
tombstone.  All  of  them  have  been  literally 
scraped  off  by  grandfather  hunters. ' ' 

Mrs.  Mackirby  smiled.  "I  suppose,"  she 
said,  "if  I  were  at  home  I  should  catch  the 
inspiration  and  be  interested  in  this  gene- 
alogical research,  too,  and  I  often  wonder  if  I 
were  at  home  again  how  I  should  stand 
regarding  the  suffrage  question. " 

"You'd  stand  up  for  suffrage,  you  would; 
of  course  you  would,"  said  the  captain, 
beaming  all  over  with  the  brilliancy  of  his 
suggestion.  "No  woman  with  a  grain  of 
sense  could  have  been  married  to  an  English- 
man for  ten  years  and  think  of  rejecting 
suffrage  rights.  No,  sir! 

"There  was  a  time  when  I  laughed  at 
suffrage ;  but  I  don't  laugh  any  more.  No, 
sir!  There  came  a  day  when  I  said  to  my 
wife:  'Jane,'  says  I,  'I  believe  in  suffrage 
for  women.  Because  why?  Take  the  school 
question  to  begin  with.  I'm  off  eleven 
months  out  of  very  twelve  hunting  a  living 
for  you  and  the  kids.  You  stay  close  to 
home,  you  watch  the  children,  you  take  'em 


78  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

to  school,  and  you  know  all  about  the  school- 
house,  and  whether  it's  warm  or  cold,  well 
ventilated  or  full  of  foul  air.  You  know 
what  manner  of  women  folks  and  men  folks 
the  trustees  is  histin'  in  onto  us.  I  wouldn't 
know  if  I  stayed  at  home  and  fixed  my  mind 
onto  it.  If  a  girl  was  darned  pretty  I'd  be 
apt  to  think  she  had  all  the  educational 
requirements. '  You  see,  that's  the  man  of 
it.  'And  besides,'  I  says,  'if  I  was  to  die, 
they'd  tax  you  just  the  same.  It's  a  queer 
law,'  I  says,  'that  takes  and  gives  to  man 
and  takes  and  don 't  give  to  woman. ' 

"So  I  says,  'You  walk  up  and  don't  you 
be  afraid  to  put  in  your  slip.1  Well,  Jane 
went.  1  drove  her  to  it ;  but  she  voted  all 
right,  and  her  man  got  in,  and  I  'm  inclined 
to  believe,  good  wife  as  she  was  before,  that 
voting  has  improved  her.  Her  bread  rises 
just  as  well,  her  house  is  as  tidy,  the  stock- 
ings are  all  darned  and  the  clothes  mended ; 
but  besides  this,  she  finds  time  to  be  inter- 
ested (with  a  great  many  other  good  women) 
for  order,  uplifting,  and  broader  and  better 
methods  of  what  she  calls  citizenship." 

"But,  captain,  tell  me  something  about  the 
dear  old  town.  I  suppose  the  streets  are  as 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  79 

shady  in  summer  as  ever — and  the  snow.  I 
suppose  the  snow  in  winter  looks  just  as 
white  on  the  hills.  Do  the  birds  gather  in 
the  spring  in  the  thicket  near  Pingree's 
hollow?  Dear,  dear!  what  a  chattering  they 
used  to  keep  up  at  sunset  and  sunrise.  And 
has  Judge  Brown  still  a  big  gold-fish  pond 
in  his  garden?  Tell  me  something  about  our 
old  house. " 

The  captain  looked  at  her  keenly,  he 
cleared  his  throat  of  a  lump,  took  out  his 
handkerchief  and  blew  such  a  blast  upon  it 
that  the  children  still  upon  his  knees  vibrated 
perceptibly. 

"Nothing  is  so  pretty  as  it  used  to  be,"  he 
said,  gently.  "The  town  is  past  its  prime; 
it  is  better  to  remember  it  as  you  do  than 
to  see  it  as  it  is."  A  bright  and  cheering 
idea  struck  him.  "You  would  be  pleased  to 
see  your  ma's  tombstone,  Mrs.  Mackirby. 
It  beats  your  father's  all  to  nothing." 

Then  seeing  that,  with  the  best  intentions 
in  the  world,  he  had  made  a  mistake,  the 
captain  pulled  out  his  watch.  It  evidently 
told  him  that  it  was  time  to  go,  so  he  rose, 
and  with  hearty  handshakes  all  round  found 
his  hat  and  took  himself  off. 


8o  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

There  was  a  house  party  down  at  Glen 
Hall,  my  Lord  Blankshire's  place  in  the 
country. 

The  situation  of  the  house  and  grounds  was 
unusually  secluded,  and  the  scenery  unlike 
Mrs.  Browning's  description,  which  says: 
"The  English  ground  is  cut  up  from  fellow- 
ship with  verdure,  field  from  field,  until  you 
come  to  understand  how  Adam  lived  in  a 
garden,  for  all  the  fields  are  tied  up  fast  with 
hedges,  nosegay-like.  The  hills  are  crumpled 
plains,  the  plains  parterres,  the  trees 
round,  and  woolly  ready  to  be  dipt — all 
nature  tamed. ' '  But  all  about  Glen  Hall  was 
exceedingly  wild.  In  the  foreground 
there  were  a  succession  of  lofty  emi- 
nences, a  portion  of  a  chain  of  hills  that 
extended  into  the  next  county,  where 
they  assumed  a  more  rugged  aspect,  and 
still  further  north  grew  into  mountains. 
The  old  house  stood  in  a  glen  or  dell,  and  it 
was  built  of  such  dark-colored  stone  that  it 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  81 

was  not  observable  until  one  approached 
very  near,  for  it  was  screened  by  the  high 
ground  of  the  park  and  backed  by  the  noble 
woods. 

Before  the  front  was  a  large  entrance 
court,  encircled  with  iron  palisades,  and 
entered  by  an  ancient  gate,  ornamented  on 
its  piers  by  cumbent  birds  and  beasts. 
There  was  a  center  compartment  with  stone 
seats  on  either  side,  and  all  the  architectural 
ornamentation,  was  of  that  mixed,  gro- 
tesque kind  which  prevailed  so  universally 
in  the  Elizabethan  period.  Above  the  porch 
were  the  nine  chief  armorial  bearings  of  the 
family,  with  this  motto,  carved  in  old 
English  lettering  into  the  stone :  ' '  Def ende 
Thine  Owne  to  the  Deathe." 

The  interior  of  the  house  was  in  keeping 
with  its  exterior,  from  the  great  hall,  hung 
thick  with  arms  and  ancient  trophies  of 
battle-field  and  chase,  and  the  richly  stained, 
mullioned  windows,  to  the  gallery  and 
drawing-rooms,  filled  with  the  rare  treasures 
of  art  and  vertu  that  centuries  of  abundant 
means  and  intelligent  appreciation  had 
gathered  into  one  stately  home. 

The  estate  lay  about  five  miles  from  the 
6 


82  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

nearest  railroad  station  (the  village  of 
Dingley  Dell),  and  the  road  from  thence  all 
the  way  to  the  park  gates  was  under  an  arch 
of  grand  old  trees. 

The  family  of  Lord  and  Lady  Blankshire 
consisted  of  two  daughters  and  four  sons. 
The  girls  had  arrived  first.  They  were 
still  "ungathered  roses"  upon  the  family 
tree.  The  sons,  even  to  the  heir,  were 
busy  men,  occupying  positions  of  trust 
and  honor;  married  and  keeping  homes 
of  their  own,  and  down  at  the  hall  now 
for  the  purpose  of  wishing  all  sorts  of 
glad  and  good  things  to  the  dear  gentle 
mother,  whose  returning  birthday  had 
brought  them  together.  Not  only  the  boys, 
but  the  boys'  wives  and  one  or  two  favorite 
and  favored  relations  were  at  the  hall. 

The  Blankshire  girls  (the  father  and  the 
mother  and  the  brothers  spoke  of  them  as 
the  girls)  had  been  presented  at  a  drawing- 
room  some  twenty-two  or  three  years  before 
the  time  in  which  we  write.  They  were 
then  typical  English  maidens  of  sixteen, 
with  stout,  healthy  figures,  pink  and  white 
faces,  clear  brown  eyes,  dark  brown  hair, 
white  teeth,  and  red  lips.  They  were  so 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  83 

nearly  fac-similes  that  it  was  difficult  for 
any  but  their  nearest  and  dearest  friends  to 
tell  them  apart,  and  a  facetious  gentleman, 
whose  small  wit  was  much  appreciated  by 
the  exclusive  rank  and  file,  dubbed  the  fair 
debutantes  ' '  Number  Eleven, ' '  a  soubriquet 
that  had  remained  theirs  ever  since,  until, 
in  their  own  particular  world,  they  were 
never  mentioned — in  their  absence — in  any 
other  way.  Why  they  had  never  married 
was  one  of  those  puzzling  questions  which 
we  are  always  asking  ourselves  when  we  see 
charming,  clever,  capable  girls  left  un  wooed 
and  unwedded,  while  little  heart-and-soul- 
lacking,  empty-headed  females  of  the  human 
species  go  off,  to  use  a  vulgar  but  trite 
expression,  "like  hot  cakes,"  in  the  matri- 
monial market. 

But  although  the  springtime  of  the  lives  of 
these  women  had  passed  and  midsummer 
had  come,  they  were  in  truth  and  reality  girls 
still,  through  a  sheltered  and  protected 
living,  through  the  quiet  round  of  doing 
good  with  which  they  filled  their  leisure 
hours.  Their  home  had  always  been  in  the 
country,  each  year  had  a  few  duty  weeks  in 
town ;  but  when  the  passing  show  was  over 


84  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

they  had  gladly  returned  to  pastoral  occupa- 
tions and  interests. 

The  Ladies  Abigail  and  Deborah  were 
fine  horsewomen,  experts  at  tennis  and  golf, 
and  so  it  had  come  to  pass  that  their  com- 
panions were  not  exclusively  matrons  of 
forty  who  had  been  girls  twenty  odd  years 
ago,  but  girls  who  were  twenty  years  old 
to-day. 

The  three  older  brothers,  Rupert,  Harold, 
and  Gordon,  were  married  to  typical,  well- 
bred,  well-portioned  English  women;  but 
Gerald's  wife  (Gerald,  the  youngest  of  the 
flock)  had  come  with  the  force  of  an  explod- 
ing bomb  into  the  old-fashioned  family, 
whose  laws  concerning  marriage  and  giving 
in  marriage  seemed  to  have  been  as  fixed 
and  unalterable  as  those  ascribed  to  the 
Medes  and  Persians. 

Gerald  had  been  a  frail  child,  and 
there  were  many  years  of  his  boyhood 
all  strewn  with  physical  pitfalls  for  the 
darling  of  the  household.  Thus  it  came  to 
be  that  Gerald's  word  was  law,  that  any- 
thing possessible  under  the  sun,  moon,  or 
stars  that  he  asked  for  was  at  his  service. 
He  was  educated  exclusively  by  tutors;  his 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  85 

mother    and    sisters     constantly     hovered 
about  him  and  cared  for  him. 

When  Gerald  was  twenty-three  a  maiden 
sister  of  his  mother's  died,  and  she  left  all 
her  entirely  independent  property  of  every 
description  to  her  nephew  and  godson,  Gerald 
Blankshire.  The  family  unselfishly  rejoiced 
in  Gerald's  good  fortune,  and  they 
applauded  his  wisdom  in  deciding  to 
take  a  trip  round  the  world,  via  the 
United  States  of  America.  So  one  day  he  had 
said  good-by,  promising  his  mother  and  the 
girls  to  bring  them  back  many  curious  and 
charming  things.  How  well  he  kept  his 
promise,  in  one  particular  at  least,  we  shall 
see. 


86  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Gerald  had  found  New  York  an  at- 
tractive place  to  tarry  in,  with  beautiful 
homes  and  charming  hostesses,  and  he 
had  never  in  all  his  life  seen  so  many  lovely 
girls ;  but,  having  the  entire  globe  to  wander 
through  before  he  should  again  see  England's 
cliffs,  he  tore  himself  away  from  all 
the  beguilements  of  modern  Gotham  and 
passing  by  many  cities,  arrived  at  Chicago, 
the  wonderful  young  queen  who  rules  her 
million  subjects  in  her  kingdom  by  the  inland 
sea,  the  broad  highway  of  water  that  marshals 
on  its  stormy  bosom  a  vaster  tonnage  to  the 
great  city  at  its  feet  than  to  any  other  port 
in  the  New  World. 

There  had  been  a  wreck  of  such  magni- 
tude on  the  road  over  which  the  "limited" 
train  bearing  the  Hon.  Gerald  Blankshire 
had  to  pass  that  his  entrance  was  made  into 
Chicago  hours  after  the  scheduled  time 
in  the  early  evening  of  what  had  been  a 
drizzling  November  day. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  87 

Taking  a  cab,  he  was  driven  at  once  to  the 
Elizabeth,  a  hotel  which  had  been  recom- 
mended to  him  by  a  New  York  acquaintance 
as  "the  least  bad  of  the  lot."  He  meant 
simply  to  stay  long  enough  to  take  in  what 
he  had  been  told  were  the  objects  of  interest 
— the  Stock  Yards  and  the  tall  buildings — 
and  then  he  intended  to  hurry  on  to  the 
Pacific  slope;  but  fate  had  other  intentions 
for  and  toward  the  honorable  young  English- 
man. 


88  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  elevator  man  had  gone  down  into  the 
basement  to  help  the  engineer  fix  the  shift- 
ing and  rigging  valve,  leaving  word  with  a 
clerk  whose  desk  was  directly  across  from 
the  elevator  to  see  that  no  one  got  into  the  car 
in  his  absence.  Upon  being  assured  by  the 
elevator  man  that  he  had  provided  against 
such  a  possibility  the  engineer  started  the 
machine  to  run  to  the  top  into  the  auto- 
matic. 

The  car  kept  going  for  two  or  more 
stories,  and  then  suddenly  dropped,  coming 
to  an  abrupt  stop.  The  engineer  looked 
perplexedly  at  the  elevator  man;  then  he 
tried  to  get  the  car  to  descend,  and  finding 
it  would  not  come  down,  he  tried  to  get  it 
to  go  up. 

"Say,  John,"  he  cried,  "some  infernal 
fool  is  monkeying  with  that  elevator.  Go 
up  and  see  where  it  is. ' ' 

The  man  came  running  back  pale  and 
breathless.  "Come  up  right  away!"  he  said 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  89 

between  his  gasps.  "She  is  stuck  between 
the  third  and  fourth  floors,  and  there  are 
people  in  her. ' ' 

The  engineer  looked  down  from  the  land- 
ing on  the  fourth  floor  and  through  the  top  of 
the  car.  He  could  see  three  people — a  bell- 
boy, a  gentleman,  and  a  young  lady.  The 
bell-boy  was  on  the  verge  of  hysterics.  The 
gentleman  was  shouting  out  a  series  of 
incoherent  questions.  The  young  lady  was 
sitting  quietly  and  composedly  on  the  seat. 

The  engineer  managed  to  explain  to  the 
gentleman  that  there  was  no  danger,  that 
the  safety  plank  was  set  securely ;  but  that, 
part  of  it  being  broken,  the  car  could  not  be 
released  until  it  was  repaired,  which,  of 
course,  would  take  some  time. 

Being  thus  advised  and  relieved,  the 
Honorable  Mr.  Blankshire  (for  it  was  the 
Honorable  Gerald)  began  to  breathe  more 
freely,  began  to  realize  the  close-at- 
hand  proximity  of  a  very  charming  girl. 
She  was  a  little  woman,  childishly  small; 
she  had  a  fair,  clear  skin,  light,  wavy  hair, 
and  large,  black-lashed  gray  eyes;  her 
delicately-formed  nose  was  a  trifle  too  tip- 
tilted  to  be  named  Grecian,  and  her  red- 


90  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

lipped  mouth  was  too  firm  and  full  of 
expression  to  be  called  pretty. 

She  was  evidently  boarding  in  the  hotel, 
and  coming  up  from  the  dining-room  to 
her  apartments  when  the  accident  trans- 
pired, for  she  had  on  neither  hat  nor 
wrap,  and  her  gown  suggested  a  rather 
elaborate  house  costume.  Her  white 
hands  were  loaded  with  glittering  rings; 
the  tiny  watch  and  other  chatelaine  adorn- 
ments suspended  from  her  waist  were 
also  gem  encrusted.  She  had  pinned 
upon  the  breast  of  her  gown  no  less  than 
five  brooches — all  emblematical  in  design 
and  significance. 

As  the  Honorable  Gerald  looked  at  her 
the  young  lady  returned  the  attention,  and 
then,  without  any  stumbling  or  hesitation, 
said  in  a  kindly  voice,  which  had  neither 
diffidence  nor  boldness  in  its  make-up : 

"You  had  better  come  and  sit  down  here, 
and  you,  too,  John"  (speaking  to  the  bell- 
boy), "for  it  is  evident,  from  what  the 
engineer  says,  that  it  will  take  him  some 
time  to  get  us  out. " 

The  bell-boy  and  the  son  of  the  great 
English  lord  obeyed  her  behest,  and  thus 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  91 

she  sat  in  the  semi-twilight  between 
them. 

"I  think,"  she  continued,  pleasantly, 
"that  all  three  of  us  have  nobody  to  blame 
but  ourselves  for  the  predicament  we  are  in, 
for  whoever,  with  a  grain  of  sense  in  his 
entire  composition,  would  think  of  getting 
into  an  elevator  when  the  man  that  runs  it 
was  not  at  the  rope?  Of  course  nobody  will 
say  anything  to  us  (she  nodded  toward 
Gerald),  but  John  will  suffer;  poor  John!" 

John  hastened  to  disclaim  this  assertion. 

"No,  I  won't  neither,  miss,"  he  said, 
confidently;  "the  clerk  didn't  see  you  get 
in,  but  he  seen  the  gentleman,  and  he  told 
me  to  run  and  fetch  him  out,  and  before  I 
could  get  to  the  words  we  was  a-flying. ' ' 

The  young  lady  laughed.  "Oh,  you  were 
both  so  funny!"  she  said,  with  a  perfect 
impartiality  of  mention.  "John  crossed 
himself  and  said  his  prayers,  and  you  (to 
Gerald)  began  jumping  at  the  iron  gate  and 
pulling  at  it  and  going  through  such  a  series 
of  antics  that  I  couldn't  help  thinking  of  the 
monkeys  in  Lincoln  Park. ' ' 

John  grinned  and  the  Honorable  Gerald 
paled  and  flushed,  then  grew  indignantly 


92  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

rigid,  and  looked  anywhere  and  everywhere 
but  at  the  pretty,rude  young  woman;  but  she 
seemed  quite  unconscious  of  having  been 
impolite,  quite  unconscious  of  the  Honorable 
Gerald's  haughty  attitude.  She  seemed  to 
have  entirely  forgotten  that  he  was  in  the  car. 

"Now,  miss,"  said  John,  "weren't  you  a 
bit  afraid?" 

"Afraid!"  said  the  small  woman.  "No; 
it  was  too  quick,  and  unusual,  too  novel, 
and  thrilling,  and  funny,  and  besides  I  knew 
it  was  a  good  elevator  and  well  put  in  and 
carefully  looked  after.  You  know,  John, 
father  is  a  machinist  by  trade,  and  he  has 
never  lost  his  interest  in  anything  of  the 
sort,  so,  as  he  has  many  a  time  for  want  of 
a  better  listener,  explained  all  the  ins  and 
outs  of  this  particular  elevator's  working  to 
me,  when  it  flew  up  I  just  supposed  that  the 
engineer  was  trying  it,  and  I  don't  doubt 
but  that  we  should  have  been  all  right  if  you 
had  left  the  lever  alone. ' ' 

"I  am  afraid  that  is  so,  miss,"  said  John, 
submissively.  "I  wonder  will  they  ever 
know  that  I  done  it?  I  would  lose  my  place 
if  they  did,  and  I  have  a  widowed  mother, 
miss,  and  some  brothers  to  help." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  93 

"A  widowed  mother!"  With  an  energy 
and  enthusiasm  better  witnessed  than 
described  the  young  lady  whipped  out  a 
note-book  and  pencil  from  her  pocket. 

"Yes,  miss,  a  widowed  mother." 

"Name  and  address,  John?" 

John  gave  it  with  rather  a  puzzled  and 
anxious  expression.  Was  she  going  to  tell 
his  mother  about  the  lever  or  what? 

"Age  (if  you  know  it)  and  occupation  (if 
any)." 

"She  was  born,"  said  John,  slowly,  "in 
the  County  Cork  in  1852 — " 

"There,  there,  John,  that's  enough,"  said 
the  young  lady,  shaking  her  pencil  and 
making  a  severe  wrinkle  between  her  eyes. 

"She  is  a  washerwoman,  and  a  devout 
member  of  Father  Kelley's  church.  John, 
now  listen.  You  go  to  confession  the  first 
day  you  get  an  hour  off,  and  you  tell  Father 
Kelley  all  about  the  lever — that  will  forgive 
you  the  sin,  and  at  the  same  time  take  it  off 
our  consciences,  and  we  won't  tell  of  him, 
will  we?"  She  leaned  forward  and  put 
this  pleading  question  directly  to  the 
Honorable  Gerald. 

He  forgot  that  he  had  been  angry  with 


94  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

her  as  he  hastened  to  answer:  "Of  course 
not;  most  certainly  not  Let's  you  and  I 
promise  the  boy  that  we'll  be  mum,  and  if 
the  lever  is  insisted  on,  why  I  will  take  the 
blame, ' '  and  so  they  made  their  everlasting 
peace. 

"Are  you  staying  in  Chicago?"  she  asked. 

He  explained  his  intention  of  leaving  it, 
if  not  to-night,  by  the  earliest  possible  train 
in  the  morning. 

"Oh,  you  must  not  do  anything  of  the 
kind,"  she  said,  earnestly,  "for  really  there 
is  no  place  like  it  in  the  world.  Of  course,  if 
you  have  just  come  from  New  York,  you 
are  under  the  impression  that  it's  a  smoky, 
noisy  city,  menaced  continually  by  Anarchists 
and  the  Clan-na-Gael.  Of  course  there  are 
a  few  of  them  here.  We  couldn't  with  any 
sort  of  decency  ask  New  York  to  keep  all 
the  disreputable  element.  We  are  willing 
to  do  our  share  of  home  missionary  work. 
Oh,  I've  heard  Eastern  people  talk  about  us. 
They  say  we  shoot  off  our  R's  like  fire- 
crackers— that  our  women  are  all  feet! 

"When  a  Western  girl  goes  East  in 
summer  this  is  about  what  they  say  of  her : 
'Oh,  yes,  that  is  Flora  McFlimsey,  from 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  95 

Chicago.  She  represents  millions  made  out 
of  pork,  or  lard,  or  the  Stock  Yards,'  and 
they  assume  an  expression  of  the  nostrils  that 
suggests  Bridgeport  to  a  Chicagoan,  and  all 
the  same  I  would  just  as  leave  have  a  pig 
rampant  on  my  coat-of-arms  as  a  wild  boar, 
now  wouldn't  you?" 

Oh,  if  my  lady  could  have  heard  the 
Honorable  Gerald  reply — if  the  twins  could 
have  heard  him  say:  "Oh,  yes,  of  course  I 
would.  A  wild  hog  and  a  tame  pig  are 
brothers,  you  know,"  and  he  beamed  and 
gleamed  as  though  he  felt  a  glow  of  sterling 
satisfaction  with  himself. 

"Now,  what  I  love  Chicago  principally 
for,"  said  the  witching  girl,  changing  her 
smile  into  a  subdued  expression  that  hid  one 
dimple  and  left  the  other  but  a  faint, 
shadow)*  thing,  "are  our  women's  clubs; 
they  open  for  us  such  unlimited  vistas  of 
thought. ' '  Then  she  sat  very  still  and  looked 
into  space. 

"I  suppose,"  said  Gerald,  "since  you 
admire  literary  women's  clubs  so  much,  that 
you  must  belong  to  one  of  them?" 

"One!"  she  said,  scornfully;  "one!  Why, 
I  belong  to  ten !  I  am  not  mentally  capable 


96  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

of  doing  much,  so  I  confine  myself  to  such 
introductory  thoughts  as  may  in  •  time 
broaden  my  intellectual  horizon. 

"On  Mondays  I  attend  a  united  study 
class.  Our  subjects  are  light,  although  not  in 
the  least  frivolous.  The  subjects  we  have 
discussed  since  we  opened  in  October  are: 
'What  Does  Economic  Science  Mean,  and 
How  is  it  Relegated  to  Modern  Life?'  'Ethics 
and  Taxation,'  'Democratizing  Industry,' 
and  'Capitalism  Triumphant.'  Next  week 
I  am  to  lead  the  topic — the  subject,  'The 
Climax  of  Individualism.'  " 

"You  must  be  awfully  clever,"  he  burst 
out.  "One  wouldn't  think  it  to  look  at 
you." 

Instead  of  taking  offense,  she  laughed  as 
though  quite  agreeing  with  his  sentiments. 

"When  they  first  gave  the  subject  to  me," 
she  said,  "I  was  frightened  to  death;  but  it 
would  never  have  done  to  have  declined, 
and  really  there  isn't  a  bit  of  trouble  about 
it.  First  go  to  an  unabridged  dictionary  (if 
it's  an  old-fashioned  one,  so  much  the 
better)  and  look  up  the  leading  words  of 
your  subject.  Give  their  roots  and  deriva- 
tions, and  look  indifferent  and  blas6  if  there 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  97 

are  any  dead  language  pronunciations  to 
reveal.  Then  look  up  these  same  leading 
words  in  a  book  of  familiar  quotations,  and 
the  mustier  and  more  remote  the  saying 
and  the  man  who  said  it,  the  more  your 
audience  will  account  it  to  you  for  brilliancy. 
Then  go  to  the  Newberry  Library  and  ask 
the  attendant  there  to  lend  you  his  or  her 
brains  and  give  you  pointers  on  books  and 
papers  that  treat  of  what  you  want  to  know. 
Copy  off  indiscriminately  thirty  or  forty  lines 
here  and  there  and  everywhere,  and  then  go 
home  and  put  them  together. 

"I  find  that  the  papers  that  elicit  my 
most  ardent  admiration  are  the  perfectly 
unintelligible  ones.  All  intellectual  atmos- 
phere, you  know,  and  no  comprehension. 
They  must,  of  course,  differentiate  a  great 
deal.  (That  word  always  makes  me  feel 
crushed  and  small.  I've  put  it  in  five  times 
in  my  paper. ) 

"But  I  must  tell  you  about  the  other 
clubs.  The  Millais  Art  Club  meets  on 
Tuesdays.  We've  done  an  enormous  amount 
of  work  among  the  old  masters,  and  now 
we  are  doing  the  symbolistic  and  impres- 
sionist schools  together,  because  there  are 
7 


98  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

such  quantities  about  both  of  them  that  we 
find  it  best  to,  as  father  says  (father  isn't 
cultured),  'change  off.' 

"On  Wednesday  comes  the  kindergarten 
study.  Dear  me !  whatever  did  our  grand- 
mothers and  our  mothers  do  without 
Froebel?  My  grandmother  (who  was  born 
in  New  England)  says  they  used  common 
sense,  the  Westminster  Catechism,  and  birch 
rods.  What  an  awful  contrast  to  the  dear 
games  and  plays?  As  I  have  told  grand- 
mother often,  if  I  have  twenty-five  children, 
they  shall  all  go  to  kindergarten,  the 
dear,  sweet  things. 

"Well,  on  Thursday  we  meet  to  discuss 
civic  things.  Oh,  it  is  so  interesting  to  hear 
the  girls  tell  how  they  would  conduct  this 
great  city  if  once  the  ballot  was  put  into 
their  hands.  They  never  will  believe  that 
they  wouldn't  be  able  to  recreate  Chicago, 
and,  in  fact,  the  whole  United  States,  until 
they  have  been  allowed  to  try,  and  I  for  one 
wish  Illinois  would  grant  us  State  suffrage, 
and  by  so  doing  settle  the  matter. 

"On  Fridays  we  are  patriotic.  We  are 
Colonial  Dames  and  Daughters  of  the 
American  Revolution  The  field  we  are 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  99 

supposed  to  sow  in  is  broad,  our  objects  of 
organization  are  grand,  but  as  yet  we  have, 
in  the  main  spent  eleven  months  in  every 
year  in  arranging  for  the  next  year's  election, 
and  having  receptions,  and  wearing  our  best 
clothes.  And  then  there  are  little  unimpor- 
tant but  pleasant  clubs  that  we  all  belong  to 
— 'girls'  friendly  societies,'  and  'sewing 
schools,'  and  'cooking  schools,'  and  'musical 
clubs.'  I  think  settlement  sewing  schools 
are  the  most  fun.  Lots  of  the  children  come 
from  awful  homes,  filled  with  microbe  germs 
that  haven't  even  been  discovered  yet,  and 
you  are  always  wondering  what  sort  of  an 
unseen  monster  you  are  carrying  back  to 
present  to  the  bosom  of  your  family.  Oh, 
I  think  microbes  are  so  fascinating,  don't 
you?" 

"And,"  said  the  young  Englishman, 
unable  to  keep  silence  and  breaking  in  upon 
the  current  of  her  narrative,  "do  you  never 
long  for  society?  At  your  age  it  seems 
rather  sad  for  a  girl  to  go  in  exclusively  for 
this  sort  of  thing. " 

"Go  into  society!  Why,  what  made  you 
think  I  didn't?  I'm  simply  devoted  to  it. 
Last  week  I  went  to  five  coming-out  teas, 


loo  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

three  breakfasts,  two  luncheons,  a  matinee 
musicale,  three  dances,  a  theatre  party,  and 
four  dinners.  Why,  what  are  you  staring 
at?  Is  there  anything  remarkable  in  a 
girl's  having  a  good  time?" 

"No,  no!  of  course  not,"  said  the  young 
man,  slowly.  "Only  I  should  think  you 
would  be  dead.  I  don't  see  where  you  get 
the  physical  endurance  to  stand  it." 

"Oh,  that's  easily  explained.  I  row  and 
play  golf  and  tennis  from  May  to  October. 
I— I—" 

Her  dimples  fled,  utterly  fled!  Her 
smile  became  a  memory.  She  sprang  upon 
the  seat  with  one  piercing  little  feminine 
shriek.  "Don't  let  it  climb  up  here!"  she 
cried,  and  forgetting  the  time  and  peculiar 
circumstance,  she  put  her  hands  through 
the  Honorable  Gerald's  arm,  and  clung  to 
him  piteously,  imploring  him  not,  oh!  not 
to  let  it  climb  up,  for  it  was  "one  of  those 
long-whiskered  ones  that  wiggle  their  noses 
so  awfully." 

Then  she  cried:  "John!  oh,  John!  catch 
it!" 

With  one  fell  swoop  the  valiant  John 
cornered  the  tiny  quivering  little  gray 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  101 

mouse,  and  all  unconscious  of  the  depravity 
of  his  action,  he  held  out  his  wriggling  prey 
at  arm's  length  by  the  tail. 

No  scream  issued  from  the  firm  lips  of 
the  girl,  no  longer  a  look  of  terror  pene- 
trated the  sweet  gray  eyes !  For  the  modern 
Minerva  had  fainted,  and  was  lying  prettily 
unconscious  in  the  willing  arms  of  the 
Honorable  Gerald.  And-  all  this  rambling 
talk  has  been  introduced  in  order  to  explain 
how  it  came  to  be  that  Gerald's  marriage 
and  Gerald's  American  wife  had  come  with 
the  force  of  an  exploding  bomb  into  this  old- 
fashioned  English  home. 


102  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  birthday  dinner  at  Glen  Hall  was  in 
progress,  and  never  had  the  old  room  looked 
more  beautiful  than  it  did  on  this  early 
spring  evening,  decked  out  with  flowers  and 
tropical  plants,  all  in  honor  of  the  gentle 
spirit  who  represented  in  herself  the  dearest 
and  the  best  attributes  of  wifehood  and 
motherhood. 

Besides  the  husband,  daughters,  sons  and 
sons'  wives  gathered  around  the  board, 
there  was  the  rector  and  the  rector's  wife, 
and  a  godson  and  nephew  of  Lady  Blank- 
shire's,  the  Honorable  Mr.  Harcourt  Vane,  a 
gentleman  of  large  landed  estate,  who,  to 
while  away  his  unincumbered  leisure,  had 
cultivated  a  taste  for  mildly  "going  into 
things,"  from  which  he  was  constantly 
emerging  with  various  and  varied  results. 

Quite  on  in  the  dinner  there  was  a  pause 
in  the  ripple  of  small  talk,  and  my  lord, 
turning  to  the  Honorable  Harcourt  Vane, 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  103 

said:  "And  how  is  the  ramie  grass  product 
doing,  Harcourt?" 

"Oh,"  said  the  honorable  gentleman 
addressed,  "it  is  going,  sir,  going,"  leaving 
it  to  be  decided  by  his  hearers  whether  it 
was  going  up  like  a  rocket  or  down  like  a 
stick. 

' '  Speaking  of  the  ramie  grass  product, ' '  he 
proceeded,  "reminds  me  of  rather  an  inter- 
esting experience  I  had  not  long  since.  I 
know  a  man  in  Ploverlie,  a  grandson  of  old 
Wiggins,  the  brewer — his  name  is  Mackirby. 

' '  Mackirby  and  I  were  in  college  together — 
that  is,  I  entered  in  his  last  year,  and  I 
happened  to  fag  for  him.  He  went  into 
business,  the  cotton  business  in  America; 
lived  there  a  good  many  years  in  a  state  of 
single  blessedness,  and  then,  madame," 
bo  wing  to  the  bride,  "was  fortunate  enough 
to  win  the  heart  and  hand  of  a  very  beauti- 
ful Yankee  girl.  I  happened  to  be  travel- 
ing in  the  States  just  at  that  time,  so  he 
asked  me  to  be  best  man.  Shortly  after  his 
marriage,  Mackirby  came  back  to  England, 
and  established  himself  in  the  cotton  busi- 
ness in  Ploverlie.  Now,  it  occurred  to  me 
that  Mackirby  might  be  a  good  man  to 


104  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

be  interested  in  my  'ramie  grass  product. ' 
So  I  made  him  a  call  at  his  office.  He 
seemed  very  much  interested  in  what  I  had 
to  say,  and  examined  my  exhibit  carefully, 
and  then  he  said:  'Vane,  I  don't  wish  to 
pry  into  your  secrets  concerning  the  process 
of  manufacture  of  this  product,  but  tell  me 
one  of  the  most  powerful  and  distinctive  \ 
ingredients. '  I  thought  a  moment,  and 
then  I  said:  'Why,  I  should  think  I  might 
name  arsenic  as  the  most  necessary,  for  it 
is  very  largely  employed.'  'Oh,  is  it!'  says 
Mackirby.  'What  a  wonderful  thing 
arsenic  is !  Have  you  never  heard,  Vane, ' 
said  he,  'that  in  certain  parts  of  the  world 
people  take  arsenic  not  only  as  a  tonic,  but 
as  a  condiment  with  their  food  as  freely  as 
we  take  pepper  or  sauces  and,'  he  added, 
'thrive  upon  it?'  I  said  that  I  had  heard  of 
such  uses  of  poison,  but  that  I  could  not  bring 
myself  to  believe  it  any  more  than  I  could 
believe  that  De  Quincey  took  nine  hundred 
drops  of  laudanum  a  day.  Mackirby 
laughed.  'There  is  more  truth  than  fiction 
in  the  old  proverb  that  "What  is  one  man's 
poison  is  another  man's  meat."  Now,' 
said  Mackirby,  'I  am  going  to  tell  you  some- 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  105 

thing  that  will  stagger  you.  There  is,  Vane, 
a  so-called  poison  which  keeps  me  strong 
and  well.  When  I  am  weak  or  weary  or 
down-hearted  I  take  it,  and  presto!  I  am 
myself  again.  This  poison  is  arsenic. 
When  I  lived  in  America  I  had  far  less 
trouble  in  getting  it,  and  if  it  were  not  for 
an  intimate  friend  of  my  brother's,  who  has 
what  the  Americans  call  "a  pull"  in  certain 
quarters,  I  should  have  died  for  lack  of  the 
only  stimulant  that  builds  me  up.  Now/ 
he  continued,  'since  you  use  arsenic,  can't 
you  get  me  some?'  I  said  'All  right,'  that  I 
would ;  that  I  had  been  able  to  secure  quite 
a  lot  for  certain  experiments  which  were 
now  finished,  so  that  I  had  no  further  use 
for  what  was  left,  and  that  he  was  more 
than  welcome  to  it. 

"You  never  can  imagine  a  man  more 
delighted.  He  offered  to  pay  me  anything 
that  I  cared  to  ask  for  it,  but  I  told  him 
that  I  had  no  license  to  sell  drugs  and  I 
promised  to  bring  it  to  him. ' ' 

"But  you  never  did!"  The  bride,  Gerald's 
bride,  had  broken  in  upon  his  recital;  her 
face  was  a  little  pale,  and  her  eyes  full  of 
astonished  reproach. 


io6  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

Mr.  Vane  laughed  lightly.  "Yes,  indeed, 
I  did,"  he  said.  "I  took  it  to  him  a  week 
ago.  There  were  one  hundred  and  fifty 
grains  in  all.  Some  of  it  was  white  and 
some  black  arsenic.  It  was  in  two  packages, 
but  I  assure  you,  Mrs.  Blankshire,  I 
warned  him  to  be  careful.  I  said  to  him, 
'Mackirby,  you  have  almost  enough  poison 
by  you  to  kill  a  regiment!'  He  said  he 
realized  that,  and  that  he  should  take  it 
home  and  hide  it  away  in  a  place  only  known 
to  himself  and  perhaps  his  brother,  to  whom 
he  confided  everything.  He  said  it  would 
never  do  to  let  his  wife  suspect  his  having 
it,  as  she  wouldn't  give  him  a  minute's 
peace  until  it  was  out  of  the  house. 

"Well,  I  think  it  was  simply  awful  of 
you!"  It  was  young  Mrs.  Gerald  again. 
"There  is  no  excuse  for  you  whatever!  I 
should  consider  that  I  was  doing  a  less 
vicious  thing  if  I  made  Xmas  presents  of 
loaded  revolvers  and  bowie  knives  to  the 
inmates  of  Elgin,  Kankakee  and  poor  dis- 
tressed Dunning — our  lunatic  asylums  at 
home — as  for  you,  an  intelligent  man,  to 
give  even  one  grain  of  arsenic  to  that  Mr. 
Mackirby." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  107 

The  silence  was  breathless,  for  this  was 
the  first  inning  of  advanced  womanhood 
under  the  Glen  Hall  rooftree. 

"That  man,"  she  continued;  "have  you 
stopped  to  consider  what  he  will  do?  He 
will  and  he  has  carried  that  dreadful  death- 
dealing  stuff  home!  He  will  hide  it  some- 
where, of  course,  where  nobody  but  his 
brother — I  feel  sure  his  brother  is  horrid — 
and  himself  knows  anything  about  it.  Well, 
this  arsenic  fiend  will  get  reckless  some 
day,  and  take  an  overdose,  and  he  will  die. 
And  the  coroner  will  be  called.  Of  course, 
the  verdict  will  be  death  by  poison,  and 
then  this  arsenic  will  come  to  light.  I  don't 
know  how,  but  it  will.  And  if  the  brother 
don't  tell,  and  you  don't  tell,  a  victim  may 
be  looked  for  to  lay  all  the  blame  upon,  for 
no  one  will  believe  the  man  did  it  himself. 

"Now,  what  you  ought  to  do  is  to  go 
straight  to  that  man's  wife,  and  tell  her  all 
about  it;  and  if  you  don't  I  shall  never, 
never  like  you  as  long  as  I  live ! ' ' 

Mrs.  Gerald  was  so  little  and  so  childish 
looking,  and  so  more  than  lovely,  that  the 
big  Englishman  beside  her  was  only  amused, 
and  the  rest  were  entertained.  It 


io8  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

was  so  novel !  So  bright !  And  fortunately 
there  was  no  one  but  the  family  present — 
for  the  rector  was  a  cousin,  too. 

But  the  bride  would  not  accept  their  light 
view  of  the  matter,  and  she  turned  appeal- 
ingly  to  her  father-in-law. 

"You  who  are  so  wise,"  she  said,  "you 
who  have  been  a  student  of  life  for  so  many 
years,  you  know  that  Mr.  Vane  did  wrong 
to  give  that  unnatural  man  all  that  arsenic, 
don't  you?" 

And  everybody  said  afterward  "How 
touching  it  was,"  "How  it  must  have  ap- 
pealed to  Gerald  to  have  the  stern,  unbend- 
ing old  statesman  say  gently  to  his  newest 
daughter-in-law:  'Yes,  my  dear,  I  quite 
agree  with  you;  I  quite  agree  with  you.'  " 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  109 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Richard  or  Dick  Mackirby,  as  we  have 
said,  had  an  intense  love  for  horses.  Let  it 
be  added  in  justice  to  the  young  man  that 
this  fondness  extended  to  children  and  to 
dogs.  Probably  next  to  their  own  mother, 
whom  they  adored,  nobody  was  so  dear  to 
the  little  Mackirby  girls  as  "Uncle  Dick." 
This  naturally  made  Richard  a  frequent 
guest  at  his  brother's  house,  and  gave  him 
opportunity,  had  he  so  desired  it,  to 
make  himself  conversant  with  all  the  goings 
and  comings  in  Charnley  Street.  What  it 
had  given  him  was  a  feeling  of  real  affection 
for  his  brother's  young  wife. 

Perhaps  Dick  was  like  many  silent  and 
outwardly  unemotional  people,  a  keen 
observer  of  human  nature.  At  all  events,  as 
we  have  said,  he  lounged  about  his  brother's 
house,  smoked  his  brother's  cigars,  and 
generally  made  himself  at  home,  and  he 
rarely  went  away  without  paying  a  visit  to 
the  nursery  or  the  schoolroom. 


110  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

If  the  mother  happened  to  be  with  her 
children,  it  did  not  prevent  Dick's  staying 
as  long  as  it  pleased  him  to  do  so,  for  she 
always  had  a  kindly,  courteous  welcome  for 
"Uncle  Dick."  Madame  Mackirby  and 
Frederick  Mackirby  hailed  Richard's  atti- 
tude with  undisguised  approbation.  They 
agreed  together  that  dear,  silent  Dick  was 
deeper  than  he  seemed ;  that  he  was  gather- 
ing evidence  against  the  squaw  to  be  handed 
over  in  the  family  interest  when  William 
was  dead  and  it  became  necessary  to  show 
cause  why  the  Mackirbys  should  control  the 
disbursement  of  much  of  the  American 
woman's  large  income;  but  for  some  reason, 
perhaps  they  themselves  could  not  have  told 
why,  they  never  alluded  to  this  matter  of 
Richard's  visits  in  their  conversations  with 
Richard.  They  contented  themselves  with 
hearing  about  them  through  Mrs.  Mackirby 's 
maid — a  paid  spy,  in  Frederick  Mackirby's 
employ. 

It  was  on  a  blustery,  gusty  afternoon,  full 
of  shower  and  shine,  that  Dick  Mackirby 
mounting  the  stairs  of  the  Charnley  Street 
house,  came  unannounced  into  the  school- 
room, to  find  his  sister-in-law  and  the  little 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  in 

girls  gathered  close  together,  all  intently 
interested  in  the  contents  of  a  small  box 
Mrs.  Mackirby  held  in  her  hand. 

"Oh,  Uncle  Dick,"  cried  Marion,  jumping 
up  from  her  knees  and  running  to  meet  him, 
"I  am  so  glad  that  you  have  come, 
mother  is  talking  to  us  about  her  grand- 
father. He  was  such  a  delightful  man, 
and  he  used  to  tell  her  such  beautiful 
stories.  When  we  ask  mother  about 
great-grandfather,  she  always  gets  out 
the  watch-charm  he  used  to  wear,  for  she 
says  when  she  looks  at  it  it  brings  back  the 
stories  he  used  to  tell  her.  Esther 
and  I  call  it  the  magic  charm.  We  pretend 
we  think  if  we  wished  anything  on  it 
it  would  come  true." 

Mrs.  Mackirby  raised  her  head  and  nodded 
and  smiled  to  the  newcomer.  "Do  come 
and  see  this  wonderful  charm,"  she  said, 
gently.  She  was  always  gentle,  always 
painfully  quiet  in  manner  of  late  years.  "It 
is  really  a  Masonic  charm,  or  emblem,  that 
belonged  to  grandfather,  and  his  father 
before  him.  My  father's  family  were 
intensely  devout  Masons.  For  three  or  four 
generations  they  had  reached  what  I  believe 


112  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

is  the  most  exalted  rank — the  thirty-second 
degree.  This,  of  course,  is  just  the  ordi- 
nary Master  Mason  insignia,  with  its  jeweled 
cross  and  crown,  and  there  being  no  male 
heir,  after  my  father' s  death,  it  came  to  me. ' ' 

Dick  leaned  forward,  took  the  charm  from 
the  box,  and  held  it  in  his  hand.  "I  have 
never  heard  you  mention  this  fact  before, " 
he  said.  "It  would  have  interested  me,  and 
does  interest  me,  for  I  am  a  Mason.  I  am 
more  interested  in  Masonry  than  anything 
else,  and  I  have  taken  this  degree,"  and  he 
looked  down  again  at  the  glittering  bauble 
in  the  palm  of  his  hand. 

"When  I  was  a  little  girl,"  said  Mrs. 
Mackirby,  addressing  the  children,  "my 
grandfather,  as  I  have  often  told  you, 
used  to  wear  this  charm  on  his  watch-chain, 
and  it  always  had  a  wonderful  fascination 
for  me ;  and  I  used  to  climb  onto  his  lap, 
and  take  the  emblem  in  my  small  fingers  and 
look  at  it,  and  then  ask  questions ;  and  finally 
grandpapa  would  take  off  his  spectacles,  and 
lay  down  his  paper,  and  proceed  to  gratify 
my  request. 

"  'Oh,  please  do  tell  me,  grandpa,  what 
the  Masons  can  do  for  one  another. ' 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  113 

"Of  course,  he  had  a  great  many  inter- 
esting and  touching  incidents  to  tell,  but  he 
knew  which  two  I  liked  best,  and  so,  no 
matter  how  many  others  he  told  me,  my  pet 
stories  were  always  included.  The  first 
was  about  a  man  who  was  captured  in  mid- 
ocean  by  pirates,  and  how  one  day, 
while  he  was  working  up  among  the  sails, 
he  saw  a  ship  in  the  distance,  but  quite  near 
enough  to  discern  the  figures  on  her  deck, 
and  he  gave  a  Masonic  sign,  and  the  Masons 
on  the  other  ship  knew  that  there  was  a 
brother  in  trouble,  so  they  came  and  rescued 
him,  and  took  him  home  to  his  wife  and  his 
little  children. 

"The  other  story  was  about  an  American 
soldier  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution.  He 
was  captured  by  the  British  and  condemned 
to  be  instantly  shot  as  a  spy.  The  poor  man 
was  not  a  spy  at  all.  He  had  been  sent  with 
a  flag  of  truce  and  a  message  into  the 
enemies'  ranks ;  but  some  bad  men  had  met 
him  on  his  way  and  robbed  him  of  his  pass- 
ports. He  tried  to  make  them  believe  this, 
told  them  all  he  asked  was  to  have  them 
hold  him  a  prisoner  until  they  could  send 

8 


H4  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

someone  to  his  general  to  find  out  if  he  was 
not  telling  the  truth.  But  the  men  would 
not  listen  to  anything  he  said,  and  just  as  the 
rope  was  being  put  around  his  neck,  another 
British  officer  rode  up,  and  the  man  made  a 
Masonic  sign  to  him,  and  the  officer  stopped 
the  execution,  and  the  man's  innocence  was 
soon  proved. 

' '  Then  I  used  to  say :  '  Dear  me,  grandpa, 
I  wish  I  could  be  a  Mason,'  and  he  would 
shake  his  head  and  say  sadly:  'When  the 
Lord  took  that  rib  out  of  Adam  he  converted 
the  vacancy  into  a  pouch  for  man  to  keep 
his  secrets  in. '  " 

"But  I  used  to  say,  'Wasn't  there  ever  a 
woman  or  a  little  girl  that  found  out?'  and 
then  grandpa  would  say,  'Now,  little 
Bonnie,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  all  about  it; 
breathe  softly  and  as  seldom  as  you  can,  so 
you  won't  miss  a  single  word. ' 

"  'Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  in  a  great 
castle  in  Scotland  a  gentleman  of  title  who 
was  grandmaster  of  a  Masonic  body,  and  as 
the  homes  of  the  men  who  belonged  to  this 
lodge  surrounded  the  castle  on  all  sides,  a 
lodge-room  was  fitted  up  in  the  grand- 


BONNIE   MACKIRBY.  115 

master's  own  house.  Now,  this  grand- 
master had  a  dear  little  granddaughter,  his 
only  son's  only  child;  and  instead  of  her 
having  been  born  with  a  silver  spoon  in  her 
mouth,  what  do  you  think  the  doctor  and 
the  nurse  did  find?  Why  a  large  interro- 
gation mark !  The  first  thing  she  ever  said 
was  'Ah  ta, '  which  being  interpreted  by  her 
mother,  who  understood  the  4Ah-goo'  lan- 
guage, proved  to  be  'What's  that?'  " 

"  'Oh,  grandpapa!'  I  used  to  cry  out, 
'that  is  just  exactly  what  I  used  to  say  when 
I  was  a  baby!  Isn't  it  funny  that  the 
princess  should  have  said  it,  too?' 

"  'Well,'  grandpa  would  continue,  'this 
little  princess,  as  you  call  her — and  by  the 
way  her  name  was  Bonnie,  too !  Yes,  it  was ! 
If  you  don't  believe  me,  go  and  look  in 
Webster's  Dictionary — this  Bonnie,  I  say, 
kept  on  asking  questions.  She  "wanted  to 
know"  and  she  "wanted  to  see"  from  one 
day's  end  to  the  other,  until  she  might  just 
as  well  as  not  have  been  the  heroine  of  the 
piece  that  my  grandmother  gave  me  a  silver 
six-pence  for  committing  to  memory  when  I 
wore  pinafores!  It  was  about — 


1 16  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

"Matilda,  who  was  a  pleasant  child, 

But  one  bad  trick  she  had, 
That  e'en  when  all  around  her  smiled, 
Oft  made  her  friends  feel  sad. 

And  how — 

"Sometimes  she'd  lift  the  tea-pot  lid, 

To  peep  at  what  was  in  it, 
Or  tilt  the  kettle  if  you  did 
But  turn  your  head  a  minute !" 

"  'This  conduct,  Bonnie,  resulted  in  a 
severe  switching — 

"And  then  while  smarting  with  the  pain 

From  birch-rod,  sick  and  sore, 
Matilda  promised  to  refrain 
From  meddling  any  more." 

"Or,  grandpapa  would  add,  'From  asking 
questions. ' 

"But  I  would  say,  putting  my  arms  coax- 
ingly  round  his  neck,  and  laying  my  face 
against  his:  'What  about  the  little  girl  in 
the  castle?  Did  she  do  like  Bluebeard's 
wife?  Did  she  unlock  the  door  and  peep  in? 
And  did  they  catch  her?  And ' 

"But  grandpa  would  look  very,  very 
wise,  and  shaking  his  white  head  gravely, 
he  would  say,  'To  be  continued  in  our  next, 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  117 

Bonnie,'  but  our  next  never  came,  for 
grandpa  always  continued  it  until  he  died. ' ' 

"Mother,"  said  Esther,  "I  should  like  to 
recite  to  Uncle  Dick  that  beautiful  piece  of 
poetry  that  your  grandfather  taught  you. ' ' 

"Oh,  do  let  her,  mother!'  pleaded  Marion. 
"It  is  so  lovely!  Pray  do!"  So  gaining 
consent,  the  little  elocutionist  rose,  walked 
to  the  center  of  the  schoolroom  and  made 
her  bow,  and  repeated  in  her  sweet,  earnest 
child  voice: 

Why,  Phoebe,  are  you  come  so  soon? 
Where  are  your  berries,  child? 

When  the  long  piece  was  finished,  little 
Esther  paused.  "I  think,"  said  Marion, 
with  a  perfect  imitation  of  her  superiors  in 
age  who  discuss  literature,  "that  the  Black- 
berry Girl  is  one  of  the  cleverest  of  stories. 
We  like  it  so  much  that  sometimes  I  say  it 
to  Esther,  and  then  she  says  it  to  me." 

Just  at  this  juncture  Elizabeth  appeared. 
"Miss  Starling,  the  dressmaker  is  here, 
m'am,"  she  said,  "to  take  your  measure  for 
your  new  dinner  dress. "  "Very  well;  go 
down  and  tell  her  that  I  shall  be  there 
presently."  Mrs.  Mackirby  then  gave  some 
directions  to  Parks,  the  nurse,  but  seeing 


n8  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

Richard  turn  to  go,  she  called  to  him  to 
wait  for  her  as  she  had  something  to  say 
to  him,  and  when  she  had  finished  her 
instructions  to  Parks,  she  joined  him  and 
they  walked  through  the  hall  together. 
She  had  the  little  jewel-box  in  one  of 
her  hands;  she  laid  the  other  hand  on  his 
arm.  "Dick,"  she  said,  "I  want  to  know 
if  you  will  accept  this  Masonic  trinket 
in  trust  for  Marion  until  she  grows  up. 
I  should  like  very  much  if  you  would  wear 
it.  You  have  always  been  kind  and  friendly 
to  me,  and  I  am  fond  of  you.  Only,  Dick, 
if  you  do  care  to  take  it  and  wear  it,  do 
not  let  anyone  know  from  whom  you  got 
it." 

He  took  the  box  from  her  hand.  "You 
are  very  good,"  he  said,  "and  I  will  accept 
your  offer,  and  it  shall  come  safely  into 
Marion's  hands  when  she  is  of  age.  And 
let  me  assure  you  that  I  am,  and  always 
have  been,  your  friend.  I  am  sorry  to  be 
forced  to  say  that  both  my  mother  and  Fred- 
erick dislike  you.  For  this  reason  it  has 
seemed  best  to  me  to  take  a  negative  posi- 
tion ;  to  say  nothing  for  or  against  you ;  to 
listen  and  to  be  silent. ' ' 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  119 

"Then,  Dick,"  she  said  earnestly,  "you  do 
not  believe  that  I  have  been  flirting  with 
Jack  Thornely,  do  you?  You  surely  do  not, 
Dick?" 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  do  not,  for  I  have 
made  it  my  business  to  find  out  the  truth 
of  that  matter ;  and  listen,  Bonnie,  irritable 
and  unreasonable  as  William  often  is, 
much  as  he  seems  to  like  to  hurt  and 
perhaps,  so  far  as  words  go,  abuse  you,  he 
holds  you  in  the  highest  respect,  and  noth- 
ing that  Frederick  or  anyone  else  could 
say  to  him  would  make  him  believe  the  con- 
trary. I  do  not  see  what  Frederick  can  say 
or  do  that  can  hurt  you  now  or  hereafter. 
But  be  careful  in  all  that  you  do  or  say 
before  Elizabeth,  for  it  is  all  repeated, 
probably  with  many  additions,  at  our  house. 
Remember,  that  if  at  any  time  I  can  serve 
you,  you  must  not  fail  to  call  upon  me. 
Remember,  I  am  always  at  your  command. ' ' 

Then  they  reached  the  door  of  her  room, 
they  said  an  indifferent  good-by  in  the 
presence  of  the  watchful  Elizabeth,  and 
parted. 


120  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

"Craigie  Glen. 
"My  own  dear  Nell: 

"I  wonder  if  you  and  the  entire  family  at 
home  enjoy  getting  my  letters  as  much  as  I 
love  writing  them?  You  will  see  by  the 
heading  of  this  epistle  that  I  have  tempo- 
rarily abdicated  from  Glen  Hall,  and  am 
with  Bettie.  Dear  me !  When  Bettie  and  I 
used  to  sit  in  our  own  room  at  Ogont2 


"In  robes  of  white,  prettiest  nightgowns  under  the 

sun, 
Stockingless,  slipperless,  sit  in  the  night  when  (our 

boarding-school)  revel  was  done, 
Sit  and  talk  of  waltz  and  quadrille,  gallop  and  glide, 

like  other  girls 
Who  over  the  fire,  when  all  is  still,  comb  out  their 

braids  and  curls." 

"We  never  dreamed  what  fate  had  in 
store  for  us.  Bettie  had  decided  to  marry 
an  out-and-out  cowboy  on  her  own  West- 
ern frontier !  She  scorned  civilized  life  as  a 
miserable  husk  and  wretched  sham!  She 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  121 

proposed  to  ride  up  and  down  canons, 
shooting  off  pistols  and  killing  wild  things 
while  she  was  young,  and  she  arranged  to 
die  when  her  first  gray  hair  appeared !  And 
I  used  to  think  if  I  could  only  be  a  second 
Susan  B.  Anthony  I  should  reach  the  high- 
est zenith  of  my  ambition.  And  now  Bettie 
is  a  duchess,  and  she  has  a  young  duke  and 
a  little  dukeling,  and  a  brace  of  castles, 
which — to  do  her  credit — she  has  'done  over' 
with  excellent  taste.  And  I  am  the  Honor- 
able Mrs.  Gerald  Blankshire  while  I'm  on 
my  wedding  visit  in  England.  We  will 
leave  the  'honorable'  in  father-in-law's  safe 
when  we  start  for  home. 

' '  But  I  know  you  are  all  dying  to  hear  about 
Bettie.  Well  to  begin  with,  Bettie  belongs 
to  what  is  called  'the  smart  set'  over  here, 
which  means  a  good  many  things  that 
would  never  be  even  dreamed  of  at  father-in- 
law's!  Bettie 's  duke  is  comparatively  new 
to  his  honors — not  more  than  three  or  four 
hundred  years  old!  Father-in-law  dates 
back  to  thirteen  hundred  and  something, 
and  a  king  and  a  battlefield — I'm  going  to 
look  it  up  some  day.  When  Bettie  wrote 
and  begged  me  to  come  and  make  her  a 


122  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

visit,  I  could  see  that  the  twins  looked 
blushey,  and  that  father-in-law  and  mother- 
in-law  didn't  approve;  but  of  course  I 
accepted,  and  then  Gerald  fell  ill  with  some- 
thing that  his  mother  called  a  'malarial 
condition,'  which  didn't  affect  his  energy  or 
his  appetite,  but  which  rendered  it  neces- 
sary for  me  to  go  alone  with  my  maid. 

"We  arrived  at  the  little  way  station  just 
at  twilight,  and  there  was  a  closed  carriage 
waiting  for  me  and  some  sort  of  an  open 
wagon  for  Martha  and  my  luggage.  And 
then  we  drove  and  bumped  and  drove  along 
a  muddy,  uninteresting  road  for  five  or  six 
miles,  so  of  course  it  was  pitch  dark  when 
we  arrived — for  Martha  followed  right  be- 
hind with  the  luggage,  as  if  for  all  the  world 
I  were  the  hearse  and  she  was  the  funeral! 

"I  suppose  I  might  as  well  describe  the 
exterior  of  Craigie  Glen  before  we  go  on. 
It  isn't  one  of  the  castles,  it's  just  'a  place.' 
The  house  is  a  protracted  affair,  two 
stories  and  a  half  high.  Of  course,  it's 
Elizabethan !  It  occurs  to  me  that  architec- 
ture as  a  profession  must  have  starved  to 
death  previous  to  this  era,  and  been  mendi- 
cants ever  since;  for  every  house  I  have 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  123 

seen  or  have  heard  mentioned  is  Eliza- 
bethan. But  Bettie's  house  is  "fetching. " 
There  are  any  number  of  bewildering  wings 
and  protruding  casements  and  little-paned 
windows  on  hinges,  and  doors  that  open  and 
shut  in  the  middle,  and  such  lots  of  Vir- 
ginia creeper  that  it  makes  me  feel  homesick ! 

"Well,  when  I  got  to  Bettie's  door  it  was 
thrown  open  by  a  footman.  I  don't  mean, 
Nell,  anything  like  those  promoted  hotel 
waiters  that  we  see  walking  through  foot- 
men's parts  in  Chicago.  These  English 
footmen  are  born  so,  not  made  to  fit  an 
occasion  of  wealth  or  pomp  or  circumstance. 
They  have  not  a  particle  of  expression ;  they 
only  move  at  their  joints,  and  their  speech 
has  all  the  charm  that  a  mechanical  doll  has 
when  you  pull  a  string  and  it  says  '  Mama. ' 

"First,  you  enter  a  great  hall  with  a  lot  of 
armor  on  the  walls ;  but  I  am  used  to  armor, 
father-in-law  has  enough  to  stock  a  museum 
with.  But  I  didn't  have  much  time  to  look 
around,  for  I  heard  a  well-known  voice  cry- 
ing: 'Oh,  Nan!  Nan!'  and  a  pair  of  arms 
were  around  my  neck,  and  my  arms  were 
around  Bettie's  neck,  and  we  were  looking 
at  each  other  with  quivering  lips  and  real 


124  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

old-fashioned  American  school-girl  tears 
running  down  our  cheeks.  The  footman 
never  moved,  and  unless  he  had  eyes  in  the 
back  of  his  head,  he  never  saw  our  weeps, 
but  he  must  have  heard  them,  they  were  so 
genuine  and  unrestrained. 

"Bettie  looked  just  the  same,  only  a  trifle 
stouter.  'You  dear  old  Nan,'  she  said,  hug- 
ging me  again,  'I  am  so  glad  to  have  you 
first  all  alone  by  myself ;  the  others  are  in 
the  ballroom  playing  what  we  would  call  in 
America,  "tag."  So  come  and  have  some 
tea  before  we  go  to  dress  for  dinner. '  Then 
she  took  her  arm  and  wound  it  round  my 
waist.  '  It  seems  so  good  to  see  you,  Nan, ' 
she  said,  'and  we  must  have  lots  of  talks 
together — you  and  I — about  people  and 
things  in  the  dear  home  land  over  yonder, 
mustn't  we,  Nan?' 

"Out  of  the  big  hall  she  led  me,  and  into  a 
little  one  with  a  stone  floor.  Then  we  turned 
a  corner  and  went  into  another  narrow 
hall,  and  then  up  some  steps,  and  so  at  last 
to  a  cosy  sitting-room — mother  would  never 
stay  in  this  house  five  minutes ;  it  gives  you 
the  impression  of  being  impossible  to  get 
out  of  in  case  of  fire. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  125 

"The  room  we  now  entered  was  so  cosy  and 
quaint,  it  looked  just  like  those  you  see  in 
colonial  Virginia  houses.  There  was  a  glo- 
rious fire  on  the  andirons — no  asbestos  logs ! 
— that  make  you  shiver,  not  only  with  cold 
but  with  thoughts  of  the  next  month's  gas 
bill.  And  I  did  feel  happy  sitting  in  one  of 
the  big,  soft,  cushiony  chairs,  with  Bettie  in 
just  such  another  soft  cushiony  one,  sipping 
our  tea,  and  all  the  while  we  were  sitting 
tete-a-tete  the  strangest  series  of  sounds  were 
greeting  my  ears.  It  occurred  to  me, 
among  other  mental  solutions  that  some  back 
portion  of  the  mansion  had  tumbled  in, 
engulfing  a  multitude  of  shrieking  servants 
in  its  ruins.  But  I  dismissed  this  sugges- 
tion, as  Bettie,  who  is  not  in  the  least  deaf, 
took  it  placidly  and  without  comment. 

"Finally,  I  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer, 
and  I  said :  '  I  suppose  a  haunted  chamber 
is  the  correct  thing  to  have  in  an  Eliza- 
bethan house,  particularly  now  that  they  say 
that  Queen  Bess  has  taken  to  walking,  but  I 
really  should,  Bettie,  insist  upon  my  ghosts 
making  less  noise.  I  thought  at  first  that  a 
part  of  your  house  that  you  hadn't  gotten 
round  to  repairing  yet  had  tumbled  in,  but 


126  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

you  couldn't  sit  unmoved  sipping  your  tea  if 
it  was  anything  like  that  that  was  creating  a 
yelling  pandemonium.  It  must  be  the  lively 
Elizabeth  at  skittles  or  broad  sword  exercise, 
or  something  of  the  sort ! ' 

"Bettie  laughed,  and  she  said,  'Oh,  dear, 
dear  old  Nan !  Just  the  same  as  ever !  Not 
an  R  softened !  Not  a  bit  of  wit  and  bright- 
ness gone!  And  to  think,'  she  said, 
slowly — it  seemed  to  me  sadly — 'that  all 
this  fine  humor  should  be  lost  on  an 
Englishman!'  Then  we  both  said  noth- 
ing for  a  little  while.  I  suppose  she  was 
casting  a  wistful  look  back  upon  her  ideal 
cowboy ;  I  know  I  thought  of  Miss  Anthony. 

"And  finally  she  said — and  if  you  will 
believe  me,  she  was  as  solemn  as  possible, 
there  wasn't  a  grain  of  mirth  in  her  voice, 
there  wasn't  a  twinkle  of  it  in  her  eyes — 'I 
think  I  told  you,  Nan,  that  my  house  party 
were  playing  tag. ' 

"  'Oh,'  I  said,  'I  see.  I  understand  now 
that  you  explain  it  to  me !  But  mother-in- 
law's  guests  don't  play  "tag"  at  Glen  Hall. 
They  don't  play  anything,  in  fact,  but  whist 
and  the  piano. ' 

"  'House  tag  is  rather  noisy,'  said  Bettie, 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  127 

'and  it  breaks  the  furniture  in  the  music-room 
and  when  they  jump  on  and  off  the  billiard 
table  too  much  it  isn't  good  for  it.  So  I 
rather  suggest,  so  far  as  I  may,  the  ball- 
room. They  are  up  there  now.  But  the 
floor  is  so  slippery — we  had  it  waxed  yester- 
day for  a  dance  last  night — that  I  am  afraid 
they  are  falling  a  good  deal.  But  here  they 
come ! ' 

"And  into  the  room  they  flocked — 'my 
ladies'  and  'my  lords, ' 'honorable  misses' 
and  'honorable  misters,'  and  some  American 
men  and  women  who  had  gotten  themselves 
up  to  look  English,  but  to  be  truthfully  and 
expressively  slangy,  hadn't  caught  on  yet, 
and  like  Peter  of  old,  everything  from  the 
crown  of  their  heads  to  the  soles  of  their 
feet  betrayed  them.  Well,  tell  grandmother 
they  all  looked  like  those  people  that  used 
to  dress  up  and  ride  about  on  horseback  on 
Thanksgiving  days  long  ago,  when  I  was  a 
little  girl,  and  used  to  go  and  visit  grand- 
mother in  the  East — those  people  that  called 
themselves  'ragamuffins.' 

"The  men's  hair  was  all  tousled,  and  those 
that  didn't  have  their  neckties  untied  or  off, 
had  them  bowed  under  their  ears  or  at  the 


128  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

back  of  their  necks;  the  ladies  all  looked 
like  'Madge  Wildfires,'  but  they  exclaimed 
in  chorus  that  they  'had  been  having  no  end 
of  a  good  time !  Jolly  fun,  you  know!'  The 
men  looked  at  me  en  passant;  the  women 
overlooked  me  altogether  until  I  was  pre- 
sented. Then  they  were  all  civil  and  pleas- 
ant except  the  American  women,  whose  icy 
glares  and  stares  were  delightfully  funny 
experiences. 

"Bettie  had  told  me  that  these  two  pro- 
ducts of  mining  speculations  had  recently 
been  presented  at  court.  If  bending  over 
the  queen's  hand  has  such  a  freezing  effect, 
I  am  glad  I  have  not  had  the  honor. 

"Father-in-law's  guests  are  never  frowsy 
or  draggled.  They  keep  themselves  in  their 
own  apartments  when  not  on  dress  parade. 

"I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  Bettie's  dear 
little  addle-headed  duke.  How  a  girl  of 
her  brains  and  beauty  and  sense  ever  came 
to  marry  such  an  it  in  pantaloons  I  don't 
see !  But  Bettie  is  true ;  she  has  taken  him 
for  better  or  for  worse,  and  she  makes  the 
best  she  can  of  him ;  and  he  adores  her,  and 
why  shouldn't  he?  She  takes  such  good 
care  of  him ! 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  129 

"I  shall  be  glad  to  go  back  to  Glen  Hall, 
not  that  I  don't  love  Bettie ;  but  I  think 
Gerald  was  right  in  getting  malaria  and 
staying  at  home.  The  atmosphere  here  is 
not  sweet  and  pure,  and  everything  is  con- 
ducted on  such  a  different  scale  of  morals 
and  manners.  The  dinners,  for  instance, 
are  very  unlike  the  stately,  ceremonious  feasts 
at  father-in-law's.  They  are  exquisitely 
served  and  provided,  but  there  are  a  great 
many  things  discussed  besides  politics,  flower 
shows  and  religion.  Some  of  the  things 
they  talk  about  would  bring  crimson  blushes 
to  the  cheeks  of  Number  Eleven ! 

"But  Bettie  is  a  duchess,  and  on  state 
occasions  she  wears  a  coronet  of  golden 
strawberry  leaves.  And  over  the  water  you 
and  I  and  everybody  else  clutch  every  item 
of  news  the  papers  give  concerning  her.  I 
like  Bettie  best,  and  I  think  she  likes  her- 
self best,  when  she  is  up  in  the  nursery  sit- 
ting in  a  little  plain,  every-day  American 
rocking-chair,  feeding  her  baby  from  her 
breast,  holding  him  close  and  telling  him 
sweet,  simple  nothings  that  make  him  stop 
and  look  up  into  her  face  to  smile  and  coo. 
These  are  the  times  that  Bettie  and  I  have 
9 


130  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

our  best  talks,   and  they  are  always  about 
home — our  America,  our  motherland. 

"Before  I  close  I  want  you  to  know  that 
the  Honorable  Mr.  Vane,  who  presented  all 
that  arsenic  to  the  arsenic  eater  in  Ploverlie, 
has  gone  off  on  a  voyage  to  the  antipodes. 
He  sent  me  word  by  Gerald  that  he  really 
hadn't  had  time  to  see  the  man's  wife,  as  I 
asked  him  to.  I  wish  he  had  taken  that 
arsenic  with  him.  Nan. ' ' 


^BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  13* 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Young  Mrs.  Mackirby  had  been  to  a 
luncheon,  and  the  absorbing  topic  of  conver- 
sation had  been  "Malchias, "  the  palmist, 
whose  art,  it  was  generally  conceded,  was 
simply  preternatural. 

So  strongly  had  Mrs.  Mackirby  been 
impressed  by  what  she  heard  that  she 
decided  to  go  to  him  on  her  way  home  and 
personally  test  his  skill.  A  servant  in  Ori- 
ental costume  opened  the  door  and  bowed 
her  into  an  apartment  from  which  all  natural 
light  had  been  excluded — a  room  that  was 
Eastern  in  all  its  accessories  and  furnishings. 
She  seated  herself  upon  a  divan,  and  laid 
upon  the  salver  presented  by  the  servant 
the  golden  fee  required  by  the  palmist.  It 
was  not  many  minutes  before  into  the 
room  came  a  tall,  fair,  well-dressed  gentle- 
man, whose  excellent  English  left  one  ques- 
tioning why  he  introduced  so  conspicuously 
Persian  hangings  and  costly  Indian  shawls 
and  the  odor  of  sandalwood  into  his  apart- 


132  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

ments'  make-up.  "May  I  see  your  hands?" 
he  said,  bowing  slightly.  She  drew  off  her 
gloves  and  held  them  palm  up  before  him. 

He  took  first  one  and  then  the  other  in  his 
own  hands,  then  he  took  them  both  together, 
but  he  uttered  no  word,  and  she  fancied  that 
his  hands  shook.  At  last,  after  what  seemed 
an  inexcusable  silence,  he  spoke:  "I  shall 
have  to  beg  you,"  he  said  slowly",  "to  receive 
back  the  fee,  for  I  find  myself  unable  to 
read  your  hand. ' ' 

She  was  such  an  unusually  gentle,  quiet- 
looking  woman  that  he  was  unprepared  for 
the  penetration  displayed  in  her  reply. 

"You  mean,"  she  said,  "that  you  read  in 
my  hands  that  which  you  do  not  wish  to 
tell  me.  If  it  has  been  given  you  to  know 
much  that  is  withheld  from  the  majority  of 
human  kind,  you  must  have  it  in  your  power 
to  be  most  helpful.  For  example,  if  j^ou 
read  in  my  hand  anything  that  shows  you 
that  sorrow  or  trouble  is  coming  to  be  my 
portion,  do  you  think  it  would  be  right  to 
withhold  it? 

"I  am  quite  alone  in  the  world — that  is,  I 
have  no  father,  mother,  brothers  or  sisters. 
There  is  no  one  in  England  who  cares  for  me 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  133 

or  my  interest.  I  have  three  children,  but 
they  are  part  of  myself.  Individually,  I 
think  I  care  little  for  anything,  and  fear 
less.  But  these  children  are  all  girls. 
They  will  be  women  by  and  by,  and  I  do  not 
want  any  sorrow  to  come  into  their  lives 
through  me.  So  I  am  sure  you  will  read 
my  hand,  and  tell  me  all  that  its  lines  show 
to  you,  and  please  believe  that  I  am  neither 
a  physical  nor  a  moral  coward. ' ' 

She  looked  at  Malchias,  and  he  looked  at 
her.  "As  you  will,"  he  said  finally,  and 
added :  "I  think  you  are  right ;  you  should 
know.  It  is  always  best  for  the  strong  in 
soul  to  be  forewarned  or  prepared  to  meet 
the  inevitable.  I  think  that  you  should 
know. ' ' 

He  then  studied  her  hands  carefully  over 
and  over  again.  At  last  he  said:  "You 
were  born  and  reared  in  a  large  town  or 
small  city  by  the  sea.  You  married  through 
and  by  the  suggestion  of  others  a  man 
much  older  than  yourself.  You  seem  to 
have  been  ver}7  young,  little  more  than  a 
child.  You  had  in  youth  a  fine  constitution 
and  great  recuperative  powers.  The  only 
shock  to  such  splendid  physical  construction 


134  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

as  yours  that  could  have  been  possible, 
then,  would  have  come  through  some  sor- 
row, disappointment  or  perhaps  physical 
abuse.  So  delicate,  so  fine  was,  and  is, 
this  mental  make-up,  that  any  abuse  too 
long  resorted  to  could  have  but  one  result, 
one  outcome ;  it  would  be  a  species  of  help- 
lessness, a  mind  paralysis. 

"Your  husband  is  feeble,  it  would  seem 
to  be,  through  some  sort  of  intemperance. 
This  condition  increases  rapidly;  it  will, 
before  long,  cause  his  death.  You  have 
incurred  the  dislike  of  some  woman,  on 
whom  you  have  conferred  many  favors,  but 
these  will  all  be  forgotten  by  her  if  any 
opportunity  occurs  in  which  she  may  do  you 
injury.  There  is  a  man  who  is  planning 
and  plotting  night  and  day  to  make  you  the 
instrument  by  which  he  shall  be  enabled 
to  carry  out  his  selfish,  vicious  and  con- 
temptible purposes. 

"I  am  afraid  I  cannot  show  you  that  any- 
thing which  you  might  now  do  would  avert 
that  which  is  soon  to  come  to  you,  which  is 
predestined ;  but  I  would  advise  you,  if  you 
have  any  man  friend  who  exerts  a  powerful 
public  influence,  to  tell  him  of  this  visit  to 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  135 

me.  He  may  laugh  at  what  you  relate  to 
him  concerning  our  conversation  to-day,  but 
he  will  appreciate  my  foresight  in  some 
near-at-hand  to-morrow. ' ' 

He  took  her  hand  again,  and  studied  it 
thoughtfully.  He  grew  white  and  faint. 
She  felt  an  intense  sense  of  gratitude  to  this 
stranger  whom  she  knew  was  moving  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  to  help  her  in  what 
he  believed  her  hour  of  need. 

At  last  he  said  ' '  Thank  God ! "  He  looked 
up  into  her  face,  and  the  drops  of  sweat 
stood  upon  his  broad  forehead,  and  he 
breathed  like  one  who  has  been  running 
hard  and  fast.  "There  is  hope  at  least 
against  the  greatest  shame  that  is  threaten- 
ing you !  Take  the  old  ring  that  you  wear 
on  a  chain  about  your  neck — it  is  a  Masonic 
ring,  a  very  old  one — and  send  it  to  the  man 
who  has  its  mate.  Send  it  to-day.  Within 
an  hour  let  it  be  on  its  way.  There  is  no 
time  to  lose.  You  are  surrounded  by  spies, 
you  are  so  hedged  in,  as  it  were,  that  it 
almost  seems  even  now  a  pitiful  hoping 
against  hope.  However,  dismiss  your  car- 
riage and  walk  home.  Turn  into  Rosebush 
Street,  and  the  man  whom  fate  sends  to 


136  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

meet  and  to  greet  you  is  the  one  to  whom 
you  may  freely  intrust  your  ring,  by  whom 
you  may  safely  send  your  message.  God  be 
with  you!"  he  said,  and  then  dropped  her 
hand,  and  was  silent. 

She  bent  her  head  in  a  wordless  good-by 
and  passed  out,  and  the  palmist  threw  him- 
self upon  the  divan,  face  downward,  and 
prayed  for  her. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  137 


CHAPTER  XX. 

The  April  day  had  lengthened  into  late 
afternoon.  A  cool  breeze  was  coming  up 
from  the  sea,  and  it  set  the  branches  sway- 
ing and  the  young  leaves  rustling  all  along 
the  tree-shaded  street. 

The  sparrows  were  gathering  in  little 
groups,  as  sparrows  have  a  way  of  doing 
toward  sundown,  and  they  were  chattering 
in  noisy,  quarrelsome  fashion. 

Young  Mrs.  Mackirby  walked  slowly  along 
Rosebush  Street ;  she  looked  such  a  peaceful, 
quiet  bit  of  womankind.  If  one  had  felt  her 
pulse  or  listened  to  the  beating  of  her  heart, 
the  rhythm  would  have  been  found  to  be 
normal ;  but  had  one  who  made  a  life  study 
of  the  human  mind  looked  into  Bonnie 
Mackirby 's  face,  he  would  have  found  oppor- 
tunity for  interesting  research  and  con- 
clusion. 

Bonnie  Mackirby  was  one  of  those  women 
who,  without  being  startlingly  beautiful,  was 


138  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

noticeably  attractive.  Her  head  was  nobly 
shaped,  its  development  symmetrical.  Her 
forehead  was  full  at  the  dome,  a  trifle  less 
so  at  the  eyebrows,  as  one  is  apt  to  find  it 
where  the  eyes  are  large  and  deep  set.  She 
had  a  beautiful  nose,  neither  large  nor  small, 
decidedly  Grecian  in  its  contour ;  the  nostrils 
were  fine  and  thin  and  sensitive,  suggesting 
spirit  and  quick  intelligence.  It  was  the 
mouth  that  gave  the  student  the  most  posi- 
tive clew  to  this  individual  bit  of  human 
history.  The  mouth  had  never  lost  the 
symmetry  of  its  early  perfection  in  both  color 
and  shape.  At  sixteen  it  had  been  a 
Cupid's  bow,  a  laughing  mouth,  showing 
the  beautiful,  firm,  white  teeth,  but  at  six- 
and-twenty  time  and  circumstance  had 
dried  up  all  the  springs  of  mirth,  and  it  had 
come  to  be  that  the  still  red  lips  found 
nothing  mirthful  in  life,  and,  knowing  noth- 
ing but  bondage,  only  smiled  now  at  the 
bidding  of  the  will — a  smile  so  piteous  and 
yet  so  sweet  that  it  was  like  the  wraiths  we 
women  cherish  of  our  bridal  roses.  She 
wore  her  heavy  auburn  hair  drawn  back  from 
her  brow,  and  its  wealth  was  twisted  into  a 
coil  at  her  head's  crown — her  queenly  little 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  139 

head  that  held  itself  so  regally  that  made  her 
seem  to  others  just  what  she  was,  a  gentle- 
woman. 

Emerson  tells  us  that  "all  the  angels  that 
inhabit  the  temple  of  the  body  appear  at  the 
windows." 

From  young  Mrs.  Mackirby's  eyes  looked 
out  not  angels,  but  ghosts,  the  ghost  of  a 
disillusioned  youth,  the  ghost  of  disap- 
pointed hopes,  the  ghost  of  a  wronged 
womanhood,  but  oftenest  there  came  the 
spirit  of  an  almost-spent  endurance — an 
apathy  which  was  taking  from  her  the  last 
remnants  of  courage  and  of  hope.  They 
were  such  sad,  hopeless,  beautiful  blue 
eyes.  It  was  such  a  sad,  sweet  face. 

She  walked  on  in  a  sort  of  trance-like 
indifference  to  her  surroundings.  She  did 
not  hear  the  sparrows'  shrill  chatter  in  that 
quiet,  unfrequented  street,  but  she  did  hear 
the  leaves  rustle,  and  she  felt  gratefully  the 
cool,  salt  breath  of  the  sea,  and  so  walking 
on  she  came  face  to  face  with  her  brother- 
in-law,  Richard  Mackirby. 

He  was  walking  briskly  along  and  so 
absorbed  in  his  own  thoughts  that  he  would 
have  passed  her  if  she  had  not  called  him  by 


140  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

name.  He  turned  and  walked  along  beside 
her. 

"So,"  she  said,  "you  are  the  man 
Malchias,  the  palmist,  the  mind-reader,  sent 
me  to  meet?" 

"Malchias,  the  mind-reader!"  he  said. 
"I  don't  understand?" 

"Why,"  she  said,  "haven't  you  heard  of 
Malchias,  Richard?  The  mysterious  man 
from  the  unknown  who  reads  such  wonder- 
ful things  concerning  the  individual,  from 
the  individual's  hand?  They  talked  so  much 
about  him  at  the  luncheon  that  I  was 
attending  to-day  that  I  decided  to  go  and 
hear  what  he  would  say  to  me,  '  then  she 
laughed,  in  mirthless  fashion,  and  added: 
"The  man  evidently  believes  in  himself.  He 
was  really  afraid  to  tell  me  what  he  fancied 
he  saw  in  the  to-come  of  my  life  page.  He 
offered  to  return  me  my  fee,  he  tried  to 
make  me  believe  that  my  hand  was  a  blank 
to  him,  but  I  knew  better,  and  I  told  him  so, 
and  finally  he  permitted  hjmself  to  say  that 
I  was  soon  to  be  in  great  peril.  He  said 
if  I  had  a  friend  who  was  prominently 
forceful,  I  must  communicate  what  he 
had  said  to  me  at  once  to  him.  He  told  me 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  141 

to  send  to  this  friend  a  ring  which  I  wear 
about  my  neck.  He  told  me  to  send  home 
the  carriage,  and  to  walk  through  Rosebush 
Street,  and  a  trusty  messenger  would  meet 
me  who  would  take  this  ring  to  my  friend. 
And  here  you  are,  and  here  is  the  ring." 

There  was  something  uncanny  in  her  great 
quiet  eyes,  in  her  immovable  smile,  in  her 
lack  of  interest,  in  her  unemotional  voice. 
She  seemed  so  altogether  far  off. 

"Bonnie,"  said  Richard  Mackirby,  gently, 
as  he  took  the  ring  from  her  hands,  "I  hope 
you  are  not  allowing  yourself  to  be  made  the 
victim  of  a  clever  trickster's  art."  He  said 
this,  but  he  did  not  believe  what  he  uttered ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  felt  that  the  man  was  a 
prophet,  and  that  every  word  of  his  advice 
was  precious  to  foil  some  unknown  and  cruel 
purpose  soon  to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
woman  beside  him.  "But,  Bonnie,  I  am 
your  friend,  and  whatever  you  bid  me  do 
with  this  ring,  I  will  do  it. ' ' 

"Then  listen,"  she  said.  "Take  the  first 
train  to  London  and  go  directly  to  Lord 
Blankshire's  house.  I  saw  by  the  morning 
paper  that  he  was  in  town.  Take  this  card 
of  mine,  and  send  it  in  with  yours,  and  he 


142  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

will  see  you.  Give  him  the  ring.  Tell  him 
all  that  Malchias  said  to  me  about  my  need- 
ing a  strong  friendship  in  the  future,  in  the 
near  future. 

"You  see  the  ring  is  Masonic.  You  will 
perhaps  for  this  reason  be  even  more  zealous 
to  be  helpful  to  me;  and  please  tell  him 
how  the  children  love  you,  and  how  fond 
you  are  of  them.  Tell  him  that  I  can't  think 
what  can  be  going  to  happen  to  me.  I  seem 
to  be  well  and  strong,  but  of  course  dreadful 
accidents  come  when  one  least  expects  them. 
And  so  I  do  not  dare  to  ignore  this  advice 
on  the  children's  account.  That  is  all  that 
there  is  to  say  to  my  lord.  But  Richard, ' ' 
she  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm,  "I  know  that 
you  are  so  truly  my  friend  that  you  will  not 
ask  me  to  explain  anything.  I  had  rather 
whatever  his  lordship  wishes  you  to  know 
concerning  his  interest  in  me  should  come 
from  him  to  you.  And  now  our  road  parts, 
and  I  must  go  on  alone,  for  we  are  nearing 
home,  and  it  is  best  that  we  should  not  be 
seen  together.  I  should  like  to  shake  hands 
with  you,  Dick,  if  you  don't  mind,  and  I 
should  like  to  ask  you,  if  I  am  going  to  be 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  143 

killed  soon  by  some  accident,  that  you  will 
not  let  the  babies  forget  me. ' ' 

She  did  not  wait  for  his  answer.  She 
turned  and  went  back  a  few  steps  to  a  cross 
street,  and  left  him  standing  there,  looking 
after  her. 


144  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

"Glen  Hall. 
"My  own  dear  Nell: 

"I  suppose  you  have  all  seen  accounts  in 
the  Chicago  papers  of  the  sensational  poison- 
ing case  that  is  stirring  us  up  over  here.  It 
would,  I  think,  be  a  matter  of  interest  to  me 
if  the  accused  was  an  English  woman,  but 
she  is  something  more ;  she  is  an  American, 
and  oh,  Nell,  Nell!  why  didn't  I  pursue 
that  misguided  Vane  until  I  made  him  tell 
the  wife  about  that  poison!  For  the  man 
who  is  supposed  to  have  been  poisoned  by 
arsenic  is  the  man  Mr.  Vane  told  us  about  at 
the  dinner  party,  and  the  woman  who  is 
accused  of  doing  it  is  his  wife. 

"Of  course,  the  poor  woman — her  name  is 
Mrs.  Mackirby — will  get  free.  All  the 
papers  but  one  say  that  she  will,  for  to  begin 
with  everybody  who  knew  this  Mr.  Mackirby 
intimately  knew  that  he  was  a  confirmed 
arsenic -eater.  The  papers  are  full  of  letters, 
written  by  well-known  and  highly  respect- 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  145 

able  people,   saying    that   they  are  willing 
under  oath  to  attest  to  this  fact. 

"It  seems  that  in  the  last  part  of  April  this 
Mr.  Mackirby  went  down  to  his  office  as 
usual,  and  while  there  was  taken  suddenly 
ill  with  nausea,  but  he  dosed  himself  up  so 
as  to  go  off  to  some  pleasure  party  in  the 
afternoon.  The  next  day  this  nausea 
returned  with  pain.  He  went  home  and 
his  wife  gave  him  a  dose  of  mustard  water, 
and  as  he  still  kept  complaining,  she  sent 
for  a  doctor.  Between  Mrs.  Mackirby 's 
mustard  and  the  doctor's  treatment,  the 
sufferer  was  relieved,  and  felt  quite  as  well 
as  usual  for  a  week  or  more. 

"But  in  early  May  he  had  another  attack 
and  his  old  physician  was  called  in.  Now, 
this  doctor  decided  to  be  homeopathic  in  his 
treatment.  He  knew  Mr.  Mackirby  ate 
arsenic,  so  he  gave  him  arsenic  to  counteract 
the  effects  the  habit  had  produced,  and  for 
some  reason  it  didn't  work.  It — one  of  the 
papers  said,  so  I  am  safe  in  copying  it — dis- 
tressed the  whole  mucous  membrane,  and  at 
Mrs.  Mackirby 's  request  the  doctor  stopped 
giving  the  arsenic  mixture  and  tried  some- 
thing else. 
10 


146  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

"Mrs.  Mackirby  never  left  Mr.  Mackirby. 
Nobody  else  could  do  anything  with  him. 

"So  she  was  with  him  night  and  day, 
taking  what  snatches  of  sleep  she  could  by 
lying  down  beside  him  when  he  was  too 
exhausted  by  impatience  and  fretting  to  ask 
for  anything  more  to  be  temporarily  done  for 
him. 

"This  constant  and  unremitting  attendance 
began  to  tell  upon  the  wife.  She  had  sev- 
eral fainting  turns  and  she  looked  like  a 
ghost. 

"So  she  was  particularly  grateful  to  Mr. 
Frederick  Mackirby,  her  husband's  brother, 
when  he  brought  in  a  trained  nurse  from 
London,  but  the  nurse  when  she  had  taken 
off  her  bonnet  and  put  on  her  cap  'insisted,' 
in  that  authoritative  manner  which  some  of 
them,  even  in  Chicago,  attempt  upon  occa- 
sions, and  this  naturally  annoyed  a  woman 
of  Mrs.  Mackirby 's  intelligence  and  refine- 
ment, and  every  hour  the  woman  grew  more 
and  more  impertinently  indifferent  to  Mrs. 
Mackirby  in  her  attitude,  whenever  Mrs. 
Mackirby  offered  a  suggestion  or  made  an 
effort  to  be  helpful. 

"In  two  days  after  the  nurse's  arrival  her 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  147 

ministrations  were  at  an  end.  Mr.  Mac- 
kirby  died  of  what  the  attending  physicians 
then  seemed  satisfied  was  heart  failure. 

"Those  last  two  days  had  been  awfully  hard 
for  the  poor  young  wife.  She  was  simply 
forbidden  by  the  brother  and  the  nurse  to  do 
anything  for  her  husband.  But  he — the 
husband — refused  to  be  taken  care  of  by 
anybody  but  his  wife.  So  they  insisted 
that  she  remain  in  the  room,  a  lay  figure,  to 
open  her  mouth  and  lift  her  hands  or  her 
feet  at  their  bidding.  Dear  me !  The  whole 
scene  makes  me  wild !  How  I  should  love 
to  scratch  them  both ! 

"As  I  have  said,  the  husband  wanted  to 
hold  his  wife's  hand;  he  wanted  her  to  lay 
her  head  on  the  pillow  beside  him ;  he  kept 
whispering  to  her  with  his  lips  quivering 
and  tears  in  his  eyes,  and  she  would  kiss 
his  cheek  and  pat  him  gently,  and  say: 
'There,  there,  dear,  don't  grieve;  it  is  all 
right,'  and  'I  have  quite  forgotten  all 
about  it. ' 

"He  wouldn't  take  any  medicine  or  any 
food  from  doctors,  brother  or  nurse.  They 
poured  it  out  and  handed  it  to  the  wife  and 
she  gave  it  to  him ;  and  if  she  left  the  room 


148  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

for  a  moment,  he  repeated  her  name  over  and 
over  and  over  again.  It  was  'Bonnie,  Bonnie, 
Bonnie!'  until  she  was  back  at  the  bedside. 

"Do  you  think  it  is  any  wonder  that  after 
being  without  any  regular  sleep  for  seven 
nights  and  days,  that  when  the  final  hour 
came,  and  he — the  husband — was  gone,  that 
she  fell  senseless  upon  his  breast?  It  is  an 
awful  hour,  Nell.  It  takes  more  than 
human  courage  to  meet  it  bravely.  Talk 
about  witnessing  gladiatorial  contests!  To 
see  a  tiny  baby  die  is  as  awful  a  sight.  The 
spirit  and  the  body  wrestling  for  the  mas- 
tery, the  enslaved  soul  trying  to  tear  itself 
from  the  cruel  clay  master  and  take  its  way 
home — these  are  sights  which  make  one  turn 
aside,  sounds  which  shake  the  stoutest 
endurance.  So  when  the  death  damps  had 
ceased  to  pour,  when  the  strong  man's  chest 
had  ceased  to  strain  and  struggle,  when  the 
last  effort  was  over,  and  the  sting  of  death 
had  been  thrust,  this  wife  swooned. 

"Her  mother-in-law  and  brother-in-law, 
the  trained  nurse  that  had  been  in  the  house 
two  days,  and  Mrs.  Mackirby's  maid  say 
that  Mrs.  Mackirby  did  not  love  her  hus- 
band, and  that  for  some  time  before  her 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  149 

husband's  death  she  had  been  openly  carry- 
ing on  a  flirtation  with — oh,  it  is  such  a  lit- 
tle world,  Nell! — mother-in-law's  nephew, 
whose  name  is  Jack  Thornely.  I  don't 
believe  a  word  of  it;  for  I  have  seen  Mr. 
Thornely,  and  what  is  more  I  have  talked 
with  him !  And  you  may  take  my  word  for 
it,  that  no  one  but  his  own  mother  could  ever 
have  loved  him — and  she  didn't  have  the 
chance  of  trying;  she  died  when  he  was 
born! 

"And  what  business  is  it  of  those  people 
whether  Mrs.  Mackirby  loved  her  husband 
or  not?  It  is  said  on  excellent  authority 
that  he  had  been  sapping  her  youth,  her 
vitality,  her  pity  and  her  patience  for  ten 
long  years;  that  he  was  a  drunkard  and  a 
libertine ;  that  she  found  that  he,  a  man  of 
over  forty,  had  married  her,  a  girl  of  sixteen, 
for  her  money — money,  not  only  to  support 
him  in  luxury,  but  to  keep  his  mother  and 
brothers  as  well.  She  bore  this  man  three 
children,  thus  mingling  for  all  time  his 
name  and  nature  with  hers;  and  so  while 
probably  she  did  not  loye  him,  in  the  sense 
of  honoring  or  respecting  him,  there  was 
the  link  of  motherhood  and  fatherhood 


ISO  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

between  them,  and  it  bound  them  close 
together.  It  was  probably  strong  within 
them  both  in  that  parting  hour.  Have  you 
never  heard  a  white-haired  woman  say  that 
when  the  partner  of  her  life  had  breathed 
his  last,  that  she  lost  all  memory  of  the 
querulous,  feeble  man,  and  mourned  for  the 
love  of  her  youth? 

"Nell,  dear,  perhaps  you  can  not  under- 
stand what  I  mean,  but  mother  and  grand- 
mother will,  and  you  will,  too,  when  he  wins 
who  now  comes  a-wooing,  for  there  is 
something  in  marriage  that  brings  a  new 
love  to  light,  a  love  that  man  and  wife 
feel  is  immortal.  It  is  often  covered  with  a 
veil  here,  but  when  death's  hand  tears  the 
earthly  fabric  away,  it  comes  back  and 
dwells  with  the  one  that  remains.  And  so 
may  not  this  wife,  kneeling  beside  her  dying 
husband,  have  gone  back  into  her  past? 
May  she  not  have  believed  that  she  held  in 
her  arms  the  man  who  wooed  her?  How- 
ever that  may  be,  when  the  spirit  of  William 
Mackirby  returned  to  the  God  who  gave  it, 
the  spirit  of  Bonnie  Mackirby  went,  too;  and 
she  followed  him  on  his  way  for  thirty-six 
long  hours,  and  when  she  awoke  to  time  she 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  151 

found  herself  a  prisoner,  guarded  by  officers 
of  the  law !  She  has  been  removed  to  jail. 
She  has  been  remanded  for  trial.  She  will 
be  free,  of  course ;  but  just  think  of  what  this 
must  mean  to  her — a  delicate,  gentle,  inno- 
cent woman !  Just  think  of  it ! 

"Nan." 


152  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

When  young  Mrs.  Mackirby  fell  into  the 
deep  swoon  beside  her  husband,  Mr.  Fred- 
erick Mackirby  tenderly  lifted  her  up  and 
carried  her  in  his  arms  from  the  room.  He 
did  not  convey  his  unconscious  burden  to  her 
own  apartments,  which  were  close  at  hand, 
but  took  her  to  a  small  room  at  the  back  of 
the  house,  and  laid  her  on  the  bed. 

It  was  a  room  no  larger  than  a  good-sized 
closet,  and  was  only  used  as  an  overflow 
when  the  house  was  more  than  full.  The 
little  window  looked  out  upon  a  blind  wall, 
and  even  in  the  brightest  days  of  summer 
it  was  cool  and  dark. 

The  nurse  and  Elizabeth,  the  maid,  fol- 
lowed Mr.  Frederick  Mackirby,  and  as  soon 
as  he  had  left  the  room  they  proceeded  to 
undress  the  unconscious  woman,  jerking  her 
about  with  no  tender  hands,  the  maid  in 
particular  being  viciously  rough.  The 
nurse,  a  big,  powerfully  built  woman,  paid 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  153 

little  heed  to  the  ;maid  or  her  actions,  save 
to  order  her  to  do  this  or  that.  The  maid 
was  servile  and  fawning  toward  the  nurse, 
and  tried  to  win  her  into  a  conversation. 

"Do  you  think,  now,  she  could  be  taking 
on?"  she  said,  jerking  as  she  spoke  at  Mrs. 
Mackirby's  sleeve. 

"Taking  on!"  answered  the  nurse.  "No; 
anyone  but  a  fool  or  a  blind  person  could  see 
that  she  is  perfectly  unconscious!  And  why 
shouldn't  she  be?  She  has  kept  herself  up 
on  black  coffee  to  my  certain  knowledge  for 
the  last  two  days.  And  during  that  time 
she  has  neither  slept  nor  tasted  food,  and 
her  husband  did  die  hard!  And  he  was  a 
long  time  in  getting  through  with  it!  She 
did  a  lot  of  quiet  suffering.  She  is  clear 
grit,  that  woman  is!" 

' '  Shall  I  take  her  rings  off?"  said  Elizabeth. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  nurse,  "those  are 
young  Mr.  Mackirby's  orders,  and  wait, 
please,  before  you  begin ;  I  will  count  them, 
as  I  shall  be  held  responsible  for  them." 

Elizabeth  shot  an  angry  glance  at  the 
nurse,  and  mumbled  something;  but  the 
nurse  did  not  seem  to  see  or  hear  her.  She 
was  taking  off  Mrs.  Mackirby's  shoes  and 


154  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

stockings.  Elizabeth  now  pulled  off  the 
rings — all  but  the  wedding  ring;  it  still 
circled  the  finger  from  which  it  had  never 
been  removed  since  the  bishop  who  had 
baptized  and  confirmed  Mrs.  Mackirby  had 
entrusted  this  pledge  to  William  Mackirby 
at  the  altar  rail,  instructing  him  to  say, 
"With  this  ring  I  thee  wed." 

Elizabeth  paused.  "Would  you  mind 
taking  this  here  one  off?"  she  said.  "It 
might  bring  me  bad  luck.  I  have  often 
heard  tell  that  it  did." 

The  nurse  looked  at  her  contemptuously. 
"Step  out  of  my  way,"  she  said,  and  she 
took  the  little  frail  white  hand  into  her 
large  work-strengthened  one,  and  she  tried 
to  force  the  ring  off.  But  it  had  wedged  a 
place  for  itself,  and  the  finger  above  where 
it  circled  had  grown  fuller.  "Bring  me 
some  warm,  strong  suds,"  said  the  nurse. 
And  the  suds  being  brought,  she  held  the 
finger  in  it  until  she  was  enabled  to  put  the 
wedding  ring,  with  the  others,  in  the  pocket 
of  her  apron.  "Now,"  she  said  to  Eliza- 
beth, "bring  a  nightgown. " 

Elizabeth  speedily  returned,  bearing  upon 
her  arm  a  coarsely  made  garment  of 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  155 

unbleached  muslin,  and  on  its  front  were 
four  large  porcelain  buttons. 

The  nurse  took  the  garment  from  Eliza- 
beth's arm  and  surveyed  it  critically.  It 
appealed  to  her  sense  of  humor.  She  almost 
laughed.  "Aren't  you  a  trifle  previous, 
Elizabeth?"  she  said.  "This  is  your  night- 
gown, and  not  Mrs.  Mackirby's." 

"Well,  suppose  it  is  my  gown,  and  not 
hers,"  said  Elizabeth,  fiercely.  "It's  good 
enough  for  her  where  she  is  going,  and  it's 
all  she'll  get,  if  I  can  help  it!  Mr.  Fred- 
erick and  Madame  Mackirby  have  promised 
me  I  should  have  her  clothes,  and  I'm  not 
going  to  waste  any  of  those  good  things  on 
her!  Not  much!" 

The  nurse  was  holding  the  helpless  head 
in  her  strong  arms,  and  putting  the  gown 
on.  "Was  she  a  severe  mistress  to  you?" 
she  said.  "You  seem  to  hate  her  so!" 

"Severe!"  snorted  Elizabeth.  "No, 
indeed!  Trash  like  her!  American  trash! 
Doesn't  know  how  to  treat  a  servant.  She 
was  always  giving  me  things  and  letting 
me  off.  But  she  was  mean!  Downright 
mean!  She  kept  all  her  affairs  to  herself, 
and  when  Mr.  Mackirby  would  be  after  strik- 


156  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

ing  her  or  anything,  do  you  suppose  she 
would  take  on,  and  cry,  and  talk  to  me 
about  it?  Bless  me,  no!  You  would  have 
thought  I  was  nobody.  She  never  so  much 
as  mentioned  it.  And,  as  sure  as  you  are 
born,  for  all  that,  we  can  swear  that  her 
and  Mr.  Jack  Thornely  was  as  thick  as  two 
thieves.  I  never  read  but  one  note  he  ever 
sent  her,  and  when  she  got  that  she  acted  like 
a  regular  play  actress.  If  I  hadn't  a-known 
from  Mr.  Frederick  what  sort  she  was,  I'd 
have  thought  she  was  as  innocent  as  a 
lamb!" 

They  had  tucked  Mrs.  Mackirby  into  the 
straw-ticked  little  iron  bed  now,  and  they 
both  stood  looking  at  her. 

"She  may  be  the  fiend  that  her  brother-in- 
law  swears  to  me  that  she  is,"  said  the  nurse, 
"and  she  certainly  did  act  queerly  toward 
me.  No  woman  who  hadn't  an  object  would 
have  dictated  to  a  trained  nurse  what  to  do 
and  what  not  to  do ;  but  she  is  beautiful  to 
look  at,  and  even  that  guy  of  a  gown  of 
yours  does  not  make  her  look  anything  but  a 
lady.  I  suppose  we  had  better  straighten 
up  the  room,  and  take  her  clothes  out  and 
lock  the  door." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  157 

"But,"  said  Elizabeth,  when  the  tidying 
had  been  completed,  "suppose  she  should 
wake  up?  Mr.  Frederick  says  it's  a  God's 
blessing  that  she  is  off  in  this  faint. " 

"I  don't  think  she  will  wake  up,"  said  the 
nurse.  But  she  took  out  her  watch  and 
counted  the  pulse.  "Well,  there  is  no 
knowing  what  she  might  do,  and  if  Mr. 
Mackirby  thinks  it  better  that  she  shall  stay 
asleep  all  night,  I'll  give  her  a  hypodermic." 

She  did  not  take  long  to  prepare  the  needle, 
nor  to  thrust  it  into  the  delicate  arm. 
"Now,"  she  said,  "let  your  soul  rest  in  quiet- 
ness. She  shan't  wake  until  it  is  time.  I 
will  look  out  for  that."  Then  she  pulled 
down  the  window  almost  to  a  close,  pulled 
down  the  shades,  thereby  shutting  out  what 
little  air  could  find  its  way  into  the  close 
room.  ' '  Come  along, "  she  said  to  Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth  looked  back  over  her  shoulder. 
"You  don't  think,"  she  said,  "that  she  will 
die?  It  would  be  very  much  against  Mr. 
Frederick's  wishes  if  she  did!"  The  nurse 
vouchsafed  no  reply.  She  motioned  to 
Elizabeth  to  pass  out  before  her,  and  then 
she  closed  and  locked  the  door. 


158  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

During  the  thirty-six  hours  that  elapsed 
after  the  death  of  William  Mackirby,  Mr. 
Frederick  Mackirby,  with  the  assistance  of 
Elizabeth  and  the  nurse,  arranged  every- 
thing in  and  about  the  apartments  of  his 
late  brother  and  his  late  brother's  wife  to 
produce  the  effect  he  desired. 

Arsenic  was  stored  away  in  one  of  Mrs. 
Mackirby' s  hat  boxes,  arsenic  was  put  into  a 
jewel  case  bearing  the  name  of  an  Ameri- 
can firm,  arsenic  was  sprinkled  into  jugs 
and  dishes  containing  food  particles,  some 
arsenic  was  dropped  into  a  half-used  bottle 
of  meat  extract.  There  was  arsenic  put  on 
the  linen  closet  shelf,  and  arsenic  put  into 
an  empty  trunk,  a  trunk  with  Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby's  maiden  name  printed  upon  it.  There 
were  arsenic  pills  put  in  a  washstand 
drawer,  and  finally  a  saucer  of  steeping  fly- 
paper conspicuously  placed  on  the  mantel- 
shelf. Then  Frederick  Mackirby  retired  to 
the  library,  where  his  mother  had  installed 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  159 

herself,  and  sent  a  messenger  for  the 
police. 

He  received  the  man  at  once  upon  his 
arrival.  His  mother,  Madame  Mackirby, 
was  weeping  piteously;  Richard,  pale  and 
distressed,  was  standing  beside  her  chair. 
Frederick  had  a  rumpled  handkerchief  in  his 
hand.  He  had  the  appearance  of  one  who 
has  recently  wept. 

"I,"  he  began  slowly  and  with  an  effort, 
"I  have,  after  long  deliberation,  decided 
that  it  is  my  duty  to  ask  an  inspection  of 
my  late  brother's  apartments.  For  several 
days  before  my  dear  brother's  death,  it  was 
forcibly  borne  in  upon  me  that  his  illness 
was  most  unnatural.  I  had  many  startling 
incidents  brought  to  my  attention ;  poisoning 
was  suggested ! 

"My  sister-in-law  is  a  young  woman,  not 
thirty  yet ;  my  brother  was  much  past  fifty. 
She  is  an  American,  and  she  married  my 
poor  brother  in  America  some  ten  years  ago. 

"She  has  to  my  certain  knowledge  been 
recklessly  intimate  with  a  man  of  good 
family.  They  have  corresponded,  for  he 
has  shown  me,  since  my  brother's  death,  her 
letters  to  him,  and  the  tone  of  these  letters, 


160  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

while  not  absolutely  criminating,  show  evi- 
dences of  an  unguarded,  reckless  attachment. 
I  have  proof  that  my  sister-in-law  visited  this 
man  at  a  public  house,  a  small  hotel ! 

"Besides  this,  I  am  ready  to  swear,  the 
nurse  who  took  care  of  my  brother  is 
ready  to  swear,  and  every  servant  in  this 
house  is  ready  to  take  oath  of  Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby's  suspicious  and  unwifely  conduct,  save 
one,  the  nurse  of  Mrs.  Mackirby's  children, 
who  is  blindly  devoted  to  her  mistress,  who 
certainly  was  most  kind  to  her." 

Here  Frederick  buried  his  face  in  his 
handkerchief,  and  the  officer  turned  to  the 
younger  brother.  "And  you,  sir,"  he 
said,  "have  you  anything  to  tell  me?" 

' '  No, ' '  answered  Richard,  quietly.  4 '  Noth- 
ing, but  that  I  believe  my  brother's  suspicions 
to  be  utterly  absurd  and  without  a  vestige  of 
foundation.  My  sister-in-law  was  a  good, 
faithful  wife,  a  loving  and  devoted  mother. 
I  was  not  here  at  the  time  of  my  brother's 
illness  and  death.  Indeed,  I  am  but  just 
returned.  I  have  nothing  to  say,  but  that  as 
my  sister-in-law's  friend,  I  scorn  this  atti- 
tude taken  by  my  brother  as  a  shameless, 
baseless  accusation." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  161 

' '  Mr.  Mackirby, ' '  said  the  officer,  address- 
ing Frederick,  "didn't  the  doctor  give  a 
certificate  of  natural  death,  and  the  cause?" 

"The  doctors,"  said  Frederick,  stifling  a 
sob,  "were  inclined  to  think  the  death 
resulted  from  heart  failure  at  first,  but  since 
then,"  another  prolonged  sob,  "they  have 
become  convinced  of  their  error.  They 
insist  that  it  is  my  duty  to  call  you  in. ' ' 

"And  what, "  said  the  officer,  beginning  to 
be  impatient  of  Mr.  Mackirby's  prolonged 
sentimentalism,  "what  do  they,  the  doctors, 
suspect?" 

"I  suspect,"  he  said,  "poison.  The  nurse 
I  brought  up  from  London  told  me  that  she 
felt  quite  sure  my  poor  brother  was  dying 
from  poison  that  was  being  administered  to 
him  in  small  doses  by  his  wife. ' ' 

"Very  well,"  said  the  officer.  "We  will 
proceed  at  once  to  examine  the  room  or 
rooms,  but  where  is  the  widow?  Where  is 
young  Mrs.  Mackirby?" 

Frederick  looked  unflinchingly  into  the 
officer's  eyes  as  he  said:  "Mrs.  Mackirby 
fell  unconscious  beside  her  husband  when  he 
died.  But  she  recovered  at  once.  I  got  her 
out  into  the  entry,  and  she  insisted  upon 
ii 


162  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

going  into  a  little  closet  of  a  room  at  the 
hall's  end.  I  tried  to  persuade  her  to  go  to 
her  own  apartment,  but  she  cried  out  in 
terror:  'Not  there!  oh,  not  there! 'and ever 
since  she  has  kept  herself  in  a  dead  condition 
with  morphine,  poor  soul!  poor  soul!"  he 
said,  and  shook  his  head. 

He  seemed  so  reluctant  to  tell  anything 
concerning  this  evidently  erring  woman,  it 
seemed  so  much  a  matter  of  duty,  that  the 
officer  was  drawn  toward  him.  He  thought 
how  much  more  of  a  man  he  was  than  his 
brother. 

So  he  laid  his  hand  on  Frederick's  shoulder 
and  said:  "I  wouldn't  be  sure  that  she  is 
guilty,  sir,  until  you  get  some  real  proof. 
Things  often  look  black,  and  then  the  sky 
clears  and  there  is  nothing  in  it  after  all. 
Would  it  be  asking  too  much  of  you  to  go 
with  me?" 

Frederick  half  rose,  and  then  staggered 
back  into  his  seat.  "I  cannot,"  he  said, 
hoarsely.  "No,  it  is  impossible!  I  will  call 
Elizabeth."  He  touched  a  bell,  and  Eliza- 
beth appeared. 

The  officer  looked  at  her  interestedly; 
looked  at  her  thin,  pale  face,  her  small, 


BONNIE  MACK1RBY.  163 

uncertain  colored,  white-lashed  eyes,  her 
thin  lips  and  her  long,  prong-like  teeth. 
"Very  well,"  he  said,  slowly.  "Lead  the 
way,  Elizabeth. ' ' 


164  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

Once  in  the  hall,  the  chief  motioned  to  two 
of  his  men  who  were  standing  there  to 
follow  him,  and  Elizabeth  leading  the  way 
they  were  soon  within  the  room  where  Mr. 
Mackirby  had  died. 

"Now,  boys,"  said  the  chief,  briskly, 
"make  a  thorough  search  through  this 
room,  the  next  room  and  the  bath-room. 
We  are  after  poison.  Find  it!  And  while 
you  are  hunting,  this  young  lady  will  sit 
down  beside  me  and  rest  herself,  for  she 
looks  worried  and  tired.  Are  you  a  house- 
maid, my  dear?" 

He  and  Elizabeth  were  quite  alone  now, 
the  men  having  begun  in  Mrs.  Mackirby 's 
room,  and  the  chief  who  had  managed  never 
to  quite  take  his  eyes  off  her  face,  thought 
that  she  looked  for  all  the  world  like  a  child 
who  was  playing  at  "search  and  find."  It 
seemed  as  though  when  the  men,  whom 
they  could  distinctly  see  through  the  wide 
communicating  door,  were  in  some  places, 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  165 

that  Elizabeth  was  going  to  cry  out,  "You 
are  hot!"  and  at  other  times,  "You  are 
cold!" 

"Are  you  the  housemaid?"  he  repeated 
again. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  am  not." 

"What  are  you,  then?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  see  what  business  it  is  of  yours," 
she  said,  sullenly. 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  get  mad  about  it  if  I 
was  you,"  he  answered,  pleasantly.  "But 
all  the  same,  my  girl,  it  is  my  business,  and 
I'll  ask  you  the  question  again.  Now,  if  you 
are  not  a  housemaid,  what  are  you?" 

"Oh,  if  you  must  know,  I'm  young  Mrs. 
Mackirby's  maid.  Now  I  hope  you  feel 
satisfied ! ' ' 

"And  why  are  you  not  with  your  mistress?' ' 

"Didn't  Mr.  Frederick  Mackirby  say  that 
she  was  asleep?" 

"Oh,  but  suppose  she  should  wake?" 

"Let's  suppose  something  that  will  hap- 
pen; she's  doped  herself  good." 

The  expression  of  the  woman's  face  as  she 
said  this  was  so  distinctly  cruel  that  the 
officer  felt  a  new  interest  ih  her,  as  a  student 
feels  when  he  discovers  some  new  departure, 


166  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

some  new  development  in  his  particular 
course  or  line  of  thought.  The  officer,  an 
advanced  student  in  the  study  of  human 
degeneracy,  felt  that  close  beside  him  was  an 
excellent  example  of  the  stuff  from  which 
criminals  are  made.  But  he  was  well  drilled 
in  his  craft ;  he  was  a  clever  detective,  as  the 
records  of  the  "Yard"  would  show.  So  he 
nodded  in  good-comrade  manner  to  the 
woman,  he  laughed  a  knowing  laugh,  and 
he  said,  appreciatively:  "That's  all  right, 
my  dear,  let  her  sleep!  Sleep's  a  good 
thing!  Let  her  sleep!" 

Just  then  one  of  the  men  came  up.  He 
was  a  young  man,  with  a  sharp,  clear-cut 
face — a  face  that  through  some  vigilance  or 
alertness  of  expression  made  one  think  of  a 
fox  terrier. 

"There  is  arsenic  scattered  everywhere," 
he  said.  "It  is  all  done  up  in  packages, 
and  is  labeled  in  clear,  distinct  handwriting. 
Besides  the  arsenic  there  is  rat  poison  and 
cat  poison  and  belladonna  and  aconite. 
There  is  enough  of  the  stuff  lying  loosely 
around  to  kill  a  thousand  men,  let  alone 
one!" 

The  chief  rose,     "I'll  come  and  check  it 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  167 

off  for  you, ' '  he  said.  Then  turning  to 
Elizabeth,  he  added  in  a  voice  that  she  under- 
stood: "You  sit  still  where  you  are,  my 
dear,  and  don 't  you  move  until  I  tell  you  to. ' ' 
And  then  he  went  about  jotting  down  the 
finds  in  a  book,  but  he  never  was  so  intensely 
occupied  as  not  to  see  the  woman  sitting 
upon  the  lounge. 

But  Elizabeth,  being  fully  impressed  that 
she  was  under  no  inspection  at  all,  when  the 
chief  and  his  men  were  in  the  linen  closet 
between  the  rooms,  got  up,  took  a  small 
pitcher  with  some  water  in  it  that  was  stand- 
ing on  a  table,  went  to  the  mantelshelf,  and 
poured  some  of  it  into  a  saucer  that  con- 
tained a  bit  of  dried  fly-paper  that  had  evi- 
dently had  water  on  it  before  because  there 
was  a  dried  yellow-brown  sediment  on  the 
china's  surface.  She  was  back  in  her  place 
before  it  seemed  possible  that  she  had  had 
time  to  accomplish  the  act.  But  she  was  not 
a  second  too  soon,  for  the  detective  was 
beside  her,  and  she  paled  and  reddened  in 
nervous  terror  at  the  thought  of  her  narrow 
escape  from  detection,  for  he  seemed  all 
unconscious  of  the  fact  that  she  had  moved 
an  inch  since  he  left  her. 


i68  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

He  sat  there  looking  into  vacancy  and 
beating  a  devil's  tattoo  on  the  wooden 
edge  that  finished  the  sofa.  Then  the 
men  came  out  of  the  closet  and  stood 
like  a  pair  of  mutes  waiting  further  or- 
ders. The  officer  stopped  beating  the 
devil's  tattoo. 

"Just  take  another  look  around  this 
room,"  he  said.  "Look  on  the  table  and 
the  chiffonier  top."  "And, "  suggested  the 
demure  Elizabeth,  "on  the  mantelshelf." 

"Now,  my  dear,"  said  the  chief,  grate- 
fully, "I  call  that  kind;  for  I  should  never 
have  thought  of  the  mantelshelf !  Don't  ever 
tell  me  that  women  folks  couldn't  make 
good  detectives!" 

Elizabeth  bridled  and  looked  indignant. 
"Dear  me,"  she  said,  tartly,  "I'm  no 
detective,  I'll  have  you  understand!  And 
I'd  like  to  get  through  with  sitting  here,  I 
would. " 

"Of  course,  you  would,"  said  the  officer 
sympathetically,  "for  I  know  that  such  a 
loving,  honest  little  woman  as  you  are  must 
be  suffering  tortures  to  be  kept  so  long  away 
from  your  poor,  sick  mistress.  What  is  that 
on  the  shelf,  Tom?" 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  169 

"It  is  some  fly-paper,  "said  the  fox  terrier, 
bringing  the  saucer  up  to  his  chief;  "but  it 
has  been  soaked  and  dried  up  before,  and 
it's  just  had  some  fresh  water  poured 
upon  it. ' ' 

"Oh,  you  must  be  mistaken  about  it's 
being  freshly  poured,  Tommy,"  said  the 
chief. 

"Well,  I  ain't,"  answered  the  fox  terrier. 
"For  they  spattered  drops  on  the  marble, 
and  they  are  there  yet ! " 

"Well,  well!"  said  the  chief,  looking 
gravely  perplexed.  "Now,  my  dear,  did 
anybody  come  into  the  room  while  I  was  out 
of  it?" 

"No,"  said  Elizabeth,  doggedly.  "How 
could  they?  You  locked  the  door,  and  you 
have  got  the  keys." 

"We  don't  need  you  any  more  now,"  said 
the  chief,  and  he  unlocked  the  door  for  her. 
Then  when  she  had  passed  out,  he  locked  it, 
and  remained  for  a  long  time  in  closeted 
consultation  with  his  assistants. 


170  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

As  the  detective  left  the  library,  Frederick 
Mackirby  raised  his  head  and  looked  over  to 
his  brother. 

"Why  didn't  you  speak  up  and  say  some- 
thing to  that  man?"  he  snarled.  "You  know 
as  well  as  I  do  what  sort  of  a  woman  Will- 
iam's wife  is,  and  has  been.  You  must 
realize  that  her  course  of  conduct,  her  open 
and  flagrant  flirtation  with  Jack  Thornely, 
her  letters  to  him,  which  are  now  in  my 
possession,  breathing  the  most  ardent  and 
undying  affection,  and  the  fact  that  she 
met  him  by  appointment  in  a  hotel,  and  now 
William's  peculiar  and  sudden  taking-off,  all 
point  to  one  awful  thought !  A  crime  which 
I  cannot  bear  to  mention!" 

"Well,"  said  Dick,  dryly,  taking  one  of 
his  late  brother's  cigars  from  a  freshly 
opened  box  and  lighting  it.  "Have  you 
finished?  Or  is  there  more?  If  you  have 
finished,  I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  I  consider 
the  attitude  that  you  have  taken  not  only 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  171 

wickedly  contemptible,  but  sublimely  ridicu- 
lous, "  and  as  he  said  it  he  looked  straight 
into  Frederick's  face,  and  Frederick,  for 
some  reason,  changed  his  tune  from  his 
former  snarl  to  a  propitiating  whine. 

"If  there  is  any  time  in  life,"  he  said, 
"when  relatives  should  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  it  is  under  such  circumstances 
as  these,  when  a  family  of  position  and 
prominence,  a  family  who  have  always 
maintained  an  exclusive  position,  are 
forced  to  proclaim  publicly  a  disgrace  and 
a  shame. " 

Richard  still  kept  his  blue  gray  eyes  fixed 
upon  his  brother's  face,  but  he  did  not  open 
his  mouth,  save  to  relieve  it  of  an  over-abund- 
ance of  smoke. 

"Why  don't  you  say  something,  Dick?" 
said  his  mother,  peevishly.  "Why  didn't 
you  tell  the  man  that  you  knew  Bonnie  was 
a  bold,  bad,  unprincipled  woman?" 

"Because,  mother,"  he  said,  "I  know  her 
to  be  nothing  of  the  kind.  And  it  seems 
hardly  the  part  of  the  prominent,  exclusive 
and  noble  family  that  Frederick  denomi- 
nates us  to  fall  to  reviling  the  hand  that  has 
fed  us  bounteously  for  so  many  years!" 


172  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

Then  Madame  Mackirby  fell  to  weeping 
and  to  crying  out:  "Oh,  my  Willie!  Oh, 
my  boy !  To  think  that  you  should  die  such 
a  death!  Oh,  my  Willie!  my  Willie!"  and 
the  old  woman  sobbed  aloud,  rocking  her- 
self to  and  fro.  Richard  turned  from  look- 
ing at  his  brother  to  looking  at  his  mother. 

"Don't  cry  any  more,  mother,"  he  said. 
"It  will  do  William  no  good,  and  whoever 
has  told  you  that  he  died  from  anything  but 
a  natural  cause  has  lied  to  you.  I  wish 
instead  of  feeling  as  you  do,  you  would  go 
upstairs  to  poor  Bonnie,  and  rouse  her  up 
and  make  her  dress,  and  come  over  to  our 
house,  where  the  little  girls  are.  She  needs 
their  comforting  arms  about  her  neck,  their 
comforting  voices  in  her  ears.  Bonnie  has 
been  a  good  wife  to  your  son,  mother,  and 
you  would  know  this  if  you  had  not  listened 
to  the  idle,  vicious  chatter  of  servants. 
Come,  mother,  let  you  and  I  go  up  to 
poor  Bonnie." 

"Go  up  to  her!  Go  up  to  that  vile 
creature!"  The  old  lady  rose  with  energy 
from  her  chair.  "No!"  she  cried.  "I  will 
stay  here,  here  in  this  room  until  I  know 
that  another  murderess  is  in  the  hands  of  the 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  173 

law!     I  want  the  joy  of  taking  that  news 
back  to  my  son's  children!" 

Strangely  enough,  it  was  Frederick  who 
spoke.  "Mother,"  he  said,  "look  at  me  and 
listen  to  me.  I  had  rather  Richard  would 
have  learned  of  the  poor  creature's  evident 
guilt  from  the  police  discoveries  and  from 
the  many  witnesses,  rather  than  from  you  or 
from  me,  because  he  is  not  with  us,  and  is 
therefore  against  us.  But  it  would  be 
madness  to  let  the  children  know  a  breath 
of  this  sad,  sad  condition!  They  must  be 
kept  in  ignorance  of  anything  concerning 
this  matter.  Even  Dick  will  see  the  wisdom 
of  this  from  a  humanitarian  standpoint.  And 
when  he  comes  to  know  the  truth  as  we  do, 
when  her  guilt  is  forced  upon  him,  he  will, 
with  us,  do  all  that  he  can  to  shelter  the  little 
lives  which  an  adverse  fate  has  com- 
mitted to  our  care  and  guardianship.  And 
remember,  these  children  blindly  worship 
their  mother.  And  should  we  seem  to  be 
doing  her  an  injustice,  the  two  oldest  chil- 
dren would  be  able  to  give  us  a  great  deal  of 
trouble,  for  public  opinion  is  a  great  thing, 
and  I  want  the  guardianship.  This  will 
enable  us  three  to  have  each  a  princely 


174  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

income  for  years,  because,  whether  she  is 
hung  for  her  crime  or  sent  into  penal  servi- 
tude for  life,  her  entire  means  will  be 
her  children's.  And  that,  with  the  large 
insurance  that  her  money  permitted  William 
to  carry,  is  no  small  matter,  I  can  assure 
you !  No.  What  we  will  all  do,  mother,  is 
to  say  to  the  children  that  their  mother  is 
terribly  ill  at  a  hospital,  and  then,  after  the 
trial  is  over,  that  she  is  dead. " 

"But  suppose,"  it  was  Dick  who  broke  in, 
"suppose,  even  with  all  the  proof  you  pre- 
tend to  have,  which  is  purely  circumstantial, 
the  case  goes  against  you,  and  Bonnie  is 
adjudged  innocent,  as,  before  God,  I  know 
her  to  be.  What  will  your  condition  be 
then?  Where  will  be  your  present  sup- 
port?" 

Frederick  smiled.  "Bonnie  will  give  us 
little  or  no  trouble  personally.  Doctor 
Worthey,  her  physician,  tells  me  that  the 
shock  of  William's  death,  added  to  many 
other  shocks,  for  we  all  know  William  led 
her  a  dog's  life,  will  about  complete  her 
mental  wreckage. 

"I'm  not  in  the  least  afraid  of  what  Bonnie 
will  do.  That  does  not  trouble  me.  But  it 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  i?5 

is  the  damned,  infernal,  meddling  news- 
papers that  we  have  to  look  out  for !  It  is 
the  cursed  free  press,  that  calls  no  man  mas- 
ter, that  dares  to  express  its  unvarnished 
opinion  upon  anything  and  everything,  that 
cannot  be  kept  out,  that  finds  its  way  into 
the  remotest  parts  of  the  earth,  that  has 
power  to  hold  up  the  most  secret  thoughts 
of  men  and  of  nations!  It  is  the  news- 
papers that  trouble  me,  for  they  form  and 
generally  settle  public  opinion!" 

"You  are  quite  right  to  fear  them,"  said 
Dick,  ' '  and  in  view  of  the  free  press  I  have 
grown  most  hopeful  for  Bonnie.  While 
you  have  been  speaking  it  has  occurred 
to  me,  if  I  am  not  incorrect,  that  when  an 
Englishman  who  has  married  an  American 
woman  dies,  the  woman  again  becomes 
an  American,  and  can  claim  the  protection 
of  the  country  in  which  she  was  born.  And 
as  our  brother's  wife  was  an  American,  she 
will  elicit  much  sympathy  from  our  cousins 
on  the  other  side  of  the  big  pond. 

"Give  it  up,  Frederick!  You  will  find 
this  advice  wise.  You  wish  to  believe  this 
woman  guilty,  but  you  will  never,  never  be 
able  to  prove  it.  But  they  are  coming 


1 76  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

back, ' '  said  Dick,  as  he  threw  his  cigar  into 
the  grate,  "and  I  see  by  your  pleased 
expression  that  they  are  bearing  sheaves  for 
your  harvest  with  them." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  i?7 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

The  duties  of  the  magisterial  office  had 
been  accomplished.  They  were  convened, 
performed  and  concluded,  around  the  bed 
of  the  semi-unconscious  woman,  for  she, 
while  able  to  speak  and  answer  questions, 
was  still  dazed  through  the  mingled  agency 
of  weakness,  nausea,  bewilderment  and 
morphine. 

In  this  condition  she  was  unresistingly 
lifted  out  of  her  bed,  dressed  in  her  plainest 
black  gown,  and  carried  down  in  the  arms  of 
an  officer  of  the  law  to  a  carriage,  and  held 
up  by  two  strange  men  in  officer's  uniform, 
in  the  carriage,  and  carried  by  one  of  these 
men  into  a  cell  in  the  jail. 

Mr.  Mackirby  had  made  his  final  exit  at  a 
very  convenient  time  for  legal  adjustment! 
One  of  the  quarter  sessions  of  the  county 
was  about  to  begin,  and  the  case  only  waited 
its  turn  on  the  calendar.  Never  before  in 
the  histofy  of  the  county  in  question  had 


1 78  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

such  a  concourse  of  people  turned  out  to 
witness  the  arrival  of  the  judges;  never  had 
the  formal  reception  of  them  by  the  mayor 
and  the  escort  been  so  impressive. 

One  of  these  judges,  the  ablest  one  of 
them  all,  or  rather  one  who  had  been  the 
ablest  in  times  past,  was  going  to  try  the 
young  American  woman  for  the  murder  of 
her  husband. 

It  was  noticeable  to  the  newspaper  report- 
ers— who,  by  the  way,  when  they  are  experts, 
have  wonderful  skill  in  feeling  the  pulse  of 
the  masses  and  diagnosing  the  mental  senti- 
ment of  the  people — that  the  masses  were 
one  and  all  in  favor  of  the  innocence  of  the 
American  woman,  but  that  the  tiny  so-called 
patrician  minority  were  lying  back  in  their 
luxurious  ease  and  saying,  "It  was  a 
shame  that  there  was  no  law,  no  power,  no 
force  to  trample  on  and  out  the  incendiary 
socialistic  and  anarchistic  utterances  of  the 
press  regarding  poor,  dear,  afflicted  Madame 
Mackirby  and  her  noble  son,  Frederick, 
when  they  had  simply  done  a  duty  to  society, 
a  duty  commendable  and  worthy  of  highest 
praise!  That  this  vulgar  uproar  about  the 
woman's  youth,  her  beauty,  her  wifely 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  179 

and  motherly  devotion,  her  Christian  charity 
and  the  rest  would,  of  course,  be  looked  for 
in  the  American  papers,  who  made  it  a  point 
to  pedestal  criminals  awaiting  trial.  But  in 
England,  and  Ireland,  and  Scotland,  really 
the  majority  of  the  press  had  gone  mad. 
They  had  caught  the  epidemic  from  the 
American  papers  as  surely  as  one  catches  la 
grippe  from  his  neighbor. ' ' 

They  said — this  awesome,  self-sufficient 
minority — that  they  were  appalled — yea, 
appalled — to  discover  that  the  woman  had 
secured  great,  powerful  counsel;  but  then 
she  was  very  rich,  and  of  course  the  law 
would  allow  her  to  use  her  own  money  in 
her  own  defense.  The  law  was  merciful, 
but,  thank  God,  and  again  thank  God!  said 
the  minority,  all  the  wisdom  of  her  counsel 
will  not  be  able  to  cover  her  sin.  In  Amer- 
ica she  would  cheat  justice,  but  she  was  in 
England!  And  a  little  time  would  prove  to 
the  press  and  to  the  rabble  generally  that 
the  woman  was  to  hang.  They  never  said, 
did  the  aristocratic  minority,  "Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby.' '  She  had  lost  her  name  with  them, 
quite  as  much  as  though  she  had  received 
her  sentence;  and  it  was  imprisonment  for 


i8o  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

life,  and  she  was  "murderess  number  such 
and  such  a  succession  of  units!" 

They  called  her  woman,  and  in  so  doing 
paid  her  unintentionally  the  highest  tribute 
of  honor  the  world,  in  giving  crowns,  can 
bestow.  "Man  was  made  from  the  dust  of 
the  earth,  but  woman  from  the  image  of 
God. "  So  woman  has  ever  been  divine.  With 
the  ancients — the  symbol  of  beauty,  purity 
and  wisdom,  Minerva,  all  perfect,  comes 
with  her  sheaf  of  wheat;  Diana  with  her 
bended  bow.  "Woman,  behold  thy  son," 
were  the  words  uttered  by  our  Christ,  as  he 
hung  upon  the  cross. 

The  name  the  minority  gave  the  prisoner 
in  the  Wilton  jail  was  a  royal  one.  It  was 
being  worn  in  all  honor  by  the  guardian 
spirit  of  the  English  nation;  and  it  seemed 
fitting  and  appropriate  to  the  prisoner,  for 
her  jailer  said  that  she  bore  herself  like  a 
lady,  and  that  she  was  kind  and  gentle  and 
untroubled. 

The  humble,  but  unextinguishable  major- 
ity said,  and  the  newspapers  said,  "That 
even  if  Mrs.  Mackirby  had  not  secured  an 
attorney  to  defend  her,  her  case  upon  its 
hearing  would  be  dismissed;"  the  majority 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  181 

said  the  whole  thing  was  a  "cooked-up 
farce,"  a  travesty  on  common  sense.  And 
so  the  days  came  and  went,  and  trial  time 
drew  near. 


i8z  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

And  what  of  the  prisoner?  She  had 
recovered  sufficient  strength  by  this  to  rise 
from  her  cot  each  day,  and,  with  the  assis- 
tance of  the  matron  of  the  jail,  to  dress,  and 
then  sit  in  the  rocking-chair  which  they  had 
brought  into  her  cell. 

It  was  known  to  the  world  that  she  had 
never  uttered  one  word  of  protest  against 
her  arrest  and  imprisonment.  She  had 
never  asked  a  question ;  she  had  never  made 
but  one  request,  and  that  was  for  yarn  and 
knitting-needles.  And  as  she  was  watched 
and  guarded  night  and  day,  this  unusual  and 
— what  the  minority  called — "unnatural  and 
suspicious  "  request  was  permitted  her. 
The  minority  considered  these  needles  and 
the  yarn  a  grave  breach  of  prison  discipline. 
They  suggested  that  it  had  a  deep  and  seri- 
ous significance.  They  said  that  it 
betokened  partisan  feeling  on  the  part  of 
the  officials,  and  suggested  that  the  whole 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  183 

force  of  the  jail  should  be  removed,  and  with 
them  the  yarn  and  the  needles,  and  that 
other  and  more  loyal  guardians  should  be 
appointed.  But  the  majority  and  the  press 
stood  by  the  jailers.  And  it  came  to  be 
that  the  silent  prisoner  knitted  all  day  long ; 
knit  lengths  upon  lengths  of  narrow  strips 
until  the  wool  failed.  Then  she  unraveled 
her  work,  and  carefully  wound  the  wool  into 
balls  to  set  the  stitches  to  begin  again. 

Her  lawyer  came  to  her  often.  She 
received  him  kindly  and  was  very  gentle  in 
her  replies  to  his  questions,  but  she 
answered  the  questions  of  the  guard  and  the 
matron  in  the  same  fashion.  She  never 
failed  to  thank  anybody  for  the  simplest 
service  rendered  to  her,  and  she  never  com- 
plained. 

When  the  prison  physician,  who  had  orders 
to  do  everything  that  he  could  to  make  her 
physically  ready  to  appear  in  court,  paid  her 
a  visit,  she  answered  all  his  questions  con- 
cerning herself  truthfully  and  intelligently. 
She  was  faithful  in  taking  the  medicine  that 
he  left  her,  often  reminding  the  attendant 
that  the  mixture  or  powder  was  due.  She 
tried  to  force  herself  to  eat  the  food  that  was 


1 84  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

brought  to  her,  although  it  was  an  effort 
even  to  look  at  it. 

To  her  lawyer  she  insisted  that  there  was 
nothing  to  tell ;  that,  of  course,  she  did  not 
know  where  the  arsenic  came  from,  but  Mr. 
Mackirby  could  tell  him — Mr.  Mackirby, 
her  husband. 

But  Mr.  Mackirby  was  dead!  Her 
brother-in-law,  Frederick  Mackirby,  and  her 
mother-in-law,  Madame  Mackirby,  had  had 
her  arrested  for  poisoning  her  husband  with 
some  of  this  arsenic.  They  were  going  to 
bring  witnesses  to  prove  where  she  bought 
it  all  and  how  she  used  it.  Her  former 
maid,  Elizabeth  Pith,  had  already  told  a 
great  many  criminating  things,  and  had 
more  to  relate  at  the  trial.  She  remem- 
bered Elizabeth  Pith,  didn't  she? 

She  laid  her  knitting  down  and  put  her 
hands  to  her  temples.  "I  am  trying  to 
think!"  she  would  say,  looking  at  him 
piteously.  "I  want  to  think  of  a  great  many 
things,  but  everything  is  so  confused  in 
these  days  that  I.  even  forget  sometimes  my 
own  name.  I  have  to  say  the  alphabet — I 
am  so  glad  I  don't  forget  that! — until  I  come 
to  the  first  letter,  and  then  I  have  to  go  back 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  185 

and  find  the  second  in  the  same  way,  and 
then  suddenly  it  comes  to  me!  And  just 
wait  a  minute!  Just  a  minute!"  and  he 
would  wait  and  wait.  Finally  she  would 
take  her  hands  from  her  head,  take  her  eyes 
from  his  face,  take  up  the  knitting  that  she 
had  laid  upon  her  lap,  and  go  on  again ;  and 
he  knew  that  she  had  quite  forgotten  his 
question  and  his  presence. 

Then  came  his  one  rousing  question.  He 
had  learned  much  about  this  woman's  na- 
ture— this  poor,  desolate  cast-away,  for 
whose  sake,  aye,  not  whose  money,  he  was 
making  ready  for  the  most  masterly  legal 
encounter  he  had  ever  engaged  in.  ' '  How, ' ' 
he  would  say,  "are  the  children?" 

Then  her  eyes  would  brighten  and  her 
grave  lips  would  smile,  and  a  dimple  would 
come  into  her  pale  cheek.  "The  children 
were  never  so  dear  and  sweet  as  they  are 
now,"  she  would  say.  "They  never  leave 
me  day  nor  night.  They  are  always  with 
their  mother.  It  is  such  a  blessing  to  be  a 
mother!  God  has  given  us  earth's  most 
precious  gift  in  our  children,  for  whatever 
should  we  do,  when  trouble  and  sorrow 
come  to  us,  without  them?" 


186  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

"And  what  has  little  Bonnie  been  saying 
to  you?"  he  would  a'sk.  Then  a  wonderful 
brooding  tenderness  would  come  into  the 
wan  face.  "Oh,  she  is  so  sweet!"  she  would 
say.  "She  doesn't  say  much.  She  just 
rests  me  and  comforts  me.  She  nestles, 
you  know.  I  can  feel  her  golden  head  on 
my  breast,  and  she  is  always  putting  up  her 
little  pink  fingers  to  my  lips  to  be  kissed. 
If  God  should  take  baby  Bonnie  away  from 
me,  my  heart  would  break. ' ' 

"And  what  is  Esther  up  , to?"  Then  she 
would  laugh.  "Oh,  Esther  is  such  an  odd 
child !  She  is  always  reciting  poems  to  me, 
poems  that  I  used  to  know  when  I  was  a 
little  girl.  And  I  didn't  suppose  she 
ever  had  been  told  about  them.  And  she  has 
such  strange  dreams!  She  told  me  to-day 
that  her  great-grandfather  came  to  her  the 
other  night  and  said:  'Esther,  remember 
that  right  is  might.  Tell  your  mother  that 
this  right  will  bring  to  her  defense  from  an 
unseen  host !  Tell  her  that  God  is  on  her 
side. '  She  said  that  her  grandfather  bent 
down  to  her  and  whispered,  'There  is  a 
brotherhood  among  the  sons  of  men  whose 
number  is  countless.  In  the  ranks  of  this 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  187 

great  and  honorable  order  I  and  my  father 
served  faithfully  and  well  on  earth,  and 
now  that  but  one  remains  of  our  race,  a 
frail,  broken  woman,  to  represent  our  name, 
the  brotherhood  will  watch  over  your 
mother,  little  Esther,  these  living  brother- 
workers  of  mine.'  " 

The  lawyer  looked  keenly  at  her;  the 
guard,  all  unconscious  of  his  action,  drew 
near;  the  lawyer  and  the  guard  looked  at 
each  other.  What  their  thoughts  were, 
what  this  woman's  words  meant  to  them 
individually,  we  cannot  know.  Perhaps 
they  meant  nothing  at  all;  perhaps  they 
thought  them  the  wanderings  of  a  clouded 
brain.  But  if  it  had  any  meaning  to  them, 
they  knew  it  had  none  to  the  woman.  She 
was  an  instrument  handled  by  unseen 
powers,  the  words  came  floating  through 
her  lips  like  a  thousand  other  vagrant 
spoken  fancies  that  the  imagined  children 
brought  to  her. 

But  might  not  the  Christ,  the  Savior  of 
mankind,  who  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead, 
who  bade  the  little  daughter  of  Jarius  to 
"Arise  and  walk,"  who  gave  back  to  the 
widow  of  Nain  her  only  son, — might  not  He, 


l88  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

the  all-merciful,  the  all-compassionate,  have 
bidden  her  dead  to  rise?  She  was  one  of 
God's  children,  consecrated  through  bap- 
tism, received  into  the  body  of  Christ's 
church  by  the  laying  on  of  hands.  She  had 
lived  honorably  and  uprightly  in  the  sight  of 
man.  She  had  been  accused,  but  not  proven 
guilty.  She  was  far  from  her  country.  She 
was  orphaned,  widowed,  bereft  of  her  chil- 
dren and  friendless.  Might  it  not  be  that 
in  her  need,  through  God's  grace,  the  life 
principle  of  that  which  had  been  her  father, 
and  her  father's  father,  and  her  father's 
father's  father,  was  permitted  the  power  to 
speak  through  her  unconscious  lips — to  cry 
out  to  brothers  still  in  the  flesh,  "Come 
and  help  us?" 

Mrs.  Mackirby  had  fallen  back  into  her 
old  attitude  again.  She  was  knitting.  The 
lawyer  bent  down  and  said  softly,  "Good- 
by."  "Good-by,"  she  answered,  not  look- 
ing up.  "She  is  with  the  children,"  said  the 
lawyer  to  the  guard.  ' '  She  is  always  with 
the  children,"  answered  the  guard  to  the 
lawyer,  and  the  lawyer  passed  out  into  free- 
dom. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  189 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

The  little  Mackirby  girls  were  looking  out 
of  the  one  window  that  the  room  assigned  to 
them  for  a  nursery  in  their  grandmother's 
house  afforded.  It  was  raining  heavily. 
There  were  dashes  of  hail  against  the  pane 
and  flashes  of  lightning  running  through  the 
leaden  sky,  and  great  peals  of  echoing 
thunder. 

Little  Bonnie  was  in  her  oldest  sister's 
arms;  Marion  was  rocking  her.  "I  want 
mother,"  she  said  fretfully.  "Get  mother, 
Marion." 

"Hush,  dear,"  said  Marion.  "You  know 
what  Uncle  Frederick  and  grandmother  tell 
you  every  day,  that  our  poor  dear  mother  is 
very  ill!" 

"I  don't  see  why  we  can't  go  and  see  her 
if  she  is,"  said  Esther,  who  was  close  at 
hand.  "They  let  us  run  in  and  out  of 
father's  room  all  the  time,  and  he  was  so 
sick  that  he  died !  And  they  didn't  take  him 
to  any  hospital!" 


190  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

"I  know  it,"  said  Marion,  gravely.  "I 
often  think  about  that,  too ;  and  the  more  I 
think  the  more  I  get  confused,  for  it  doesn't 
seem  a  bit  like  mother  not  to  want  us  to 
come  to  her,  and  it's  so  long ! ' ' 

"  I  do  wish  she  would  hurry  up  and  get 
well!"  said  Esther.  "I  hate  grandmother's 
house.  It  smells  so  of  the  cooking,  and  I 
hate  this  nursery,  and  I  hate,  oh  I  hate  our 
bedroom !  The  paper  on  the  wall  has  grin- 
ning faces  all  over  it,  faces  of  tigers  and 
witches !  Grandmother  may  think  they  look 
like  roses  if  she  likes,  but  it's  a  witch  paper, 
all  the  same!" 

"Parks,"  said  Marion,  stopping  in  her 
rocking  to  address  the  nurse,  who  was  at 
the  other  end  of  the  room,  putting  away 
the  clothes  from  the  laundry,  "Parks,  do 
you  know  which  hospital  mother  is  at?" 

"No,  miss,  I  don't,"  said  Parks,  in  the 
distance. 

"Do  you  know  what's  the  matter  with 
mother,  Parks?" 

"Well,  miss,"  said  Parks,  gravely,  "I 
might  give  it  to  you  in  Latin,  but  there  isn't 
any  real  out-an'-out  English  name  for  it; 
and  I  wouldn't  be  askin'  questions.  Ques- 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  191 

tions  is  perplexin'  to  grown  folks,  let  alone 
children.  And,  besides,  if  yer  ma  knew 
you  was  all  worriting  about  her,  it 
would  make  her  worser.  So  just  leave  her 
with  God  and  the  blessed  saints,  the  way  I 
do,  Miss  Marion." 

Parks  was  a  thin,  middle-aged  woman, 
with  a  flat  chest  and  a  red  nose.  She  had 
come  to  Mrs.  Mackirby  when  Esther  was 
born,  and  had  been  regent  of  the  nursery 
ever  since.  People  who  interested  them- 
selves in  Mrs.  Mackirby' s  private  affairs  had 
often  wondered  why  Mrs.  Mackirby  had 
selected  such  an  unattractive  nurse;  but 
Mrs.  Mackirby  had  kept  Parks,  and  Parks 
had  proved  herself  to  be  an  invaluable 
servant.  The  children  were  always  looked 
after  and  watched  over,  and  in  spite  of  her 
plain  face  they — the  children — loved  her 
dearly. 

When  Mr.  Mackirby  died  and  Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby was  removed  to  the  jail,  Frederick  and 
his  mother  decided  to  dismiss  Parks  and 
install  Elizabeth  in  the  nursery,  but  Richard 
protested.  Yet,  in  the  face  of  this  protest, 
the  twain,  when  Richard  was  absent, 
summoned  Parks  and  told  her  to  go.  Parks 


192  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

was  little,  and  her  voice  was  as  small 
as  her  body  was  short,  and  she  gave  the 
impression  of  meekness.  But  on  this  occa- 
sion she  proved  herself  more  than  a  match 
for  the  enemy. 

"It  shall  be  as  you  like,  of  course,"  said 
Parks,  "but  I  think  it  would  be  better  for 
you  and  Mr.  Frederick,  mem,  to  let  me  stay 
with  the  children. 

"To  begin  with,  my  poor  mistress 
in  her  prison  cell  is  not  the  only  per- 
son that  the  people  are  discussing  in  the 
Mackirby  murder  case!  Folks  are  ask- 
ing each  other  such  questions  as  these, 
'If  there  wasn't  money  to  be  taken  care 
of  until  the  children  are  old  enough  to 
be  of  age  is  it  likely  that  Mr.  Frederick 
would  have  made  up  his  mind  that  his 
brother's  wife  was  so  wicked?'  That  is  only 
one  of  the  things  they  are  askin'.  Now, 
listen,  mem,  and  you  too,  sir.  I  stands  up  for 
my  mistress  first,  last  and  every  time,  and 
I  think  she  would  tell  me  that  I  was  serving 
her  best  by  staying  with  the  children  and 
caring  for  them  as  she  would  wish  me  to  do. 
She  will  be  coming  out  soon,  for  you  can't 
prove  anything  against  her;  and  then  the 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  193 

tables  can  be  turned  on  you,  for  she  is  as 
innocent  and  pure-hearted  as  baby  Bonnie 
upstairs. 

"Now,  as  I'm  going  away  I  want  to  say 
that  I  hope  the  time  will  come  when  you 
will  both  feel  sorry  for  what  you  have  done, 
not  that  she  won't  forgive  you — she's  that 
gentle  and  forgiving  that  she  could  never 
bear  malice  toward  even  her  worst  enemy ! 
Look  at  the  way  she  always  treated  Mr. 
Mackirby!  When  he  was  feelin'  the  want 
of  pizen  he  would  get  awful  riley ;  he  would 
come  into  her  room,  and  just  try  hard  to  get 
her  to  answer  him  back.  He  would  say 
mean  things  to  her,  mem, — she  the  mother 
of  his  little  girls — and  when  she  would  rouse 
up  now  and  then  to  answer  him  back,  Lord ! 
what  blows  he  would  give  her !  In  the  face 
sometimes,  but  oftenest  on  her  tender 
breast !  Along  at  first  she  used  to  faint,  and 
when  it  was  over  she  would  threaten  to 
leave  him;  but  that  was  all  it  amounted 
to,  she  always  forgave  him.  I  have  never 
heard  her,  in  all  the  years  that  I  have  been 
her  servant,  say  a  mean  word  against  you, 
mem,  or  Mr.  Frederick. 

"Perhaps,  mem,  you  never  heard  how  she 
13 


194  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

came  to  take  me.  She  was  a  visitor  in  a 
hospital  where  I  was  laid  up.  I  had  a  man 
that  abused  me,  but  then  my  man  wasn't  no 
gentleman  like  Mr.  Mackirby,  and  it  was 
natural  for  him,  when  he  was  in  drink,  to 
be  kinder  free-like  with  his  hands;  but  he 
had  a  real  good  heart,  and  when  he  was  sober 
he  used  to  cry  because  he  had  beat  me, 
and  he  would  ask  me  to  forgive  him. 
Well,  mem,  once  he  got  on  an  awful 
spree,  and  he  made  out  to  nearly  kill 
me,  and  then  he  killed  hisself.  Mrs. 
Mackirby,  she  heard  my  story,  and  she 
took  a  great  interest  in  me,  and  she  found 
out  that  I  come  of  decent,  honest  folks ;  for 
she  writ  to  the  country-place  I  came  from 
for  my  character,  and  she  got  a  letter  back 
from  our  priest.  My  name  was  McFadden 
before  I  was  married,  mem,  to  Parks. 

"I  had  had  children  of  my  own  and  lost 
"em,  so  she  knew  I  would  be  good  to  hers, 
and  my  greatest  desire  is  to  continue  to  be. 
But  if  I  can't  care  for  her  children,  I  can 
work  for  her,  and  I'm  thinkin'  I'll  travel 
the  kingdom  over,  telling  all  the  newspaper 
folks  the  story  I  have  told  you,  and  many 
things  besides,  for  I  know  much,  mem,  that 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  195 

is  neither  to  your  or  to  Mr.  Frederick's 
credit — indeed,  I  do!"  And  Parks  had 
staid. 

And  now  to  go  back  to  Marion  Mac- 
kirby's  question.  Parks'  answer  did  not 
seem  to  satisfy  her.  She  was  a  clever  child, 
and  she  knew  that  Parks  was  only  trying  to 
keep  something  from  her.  She  rocked 
Bonnie  softly,  and  her  little  face  was  full  of 
grave  thought.  It  was  Esther,  however, 
who  broke  the  silence. 

"Do  you  believe  in  dreams,  Parks?"  she 
said. 

"Well,"  answered  Parks,  guardedly, 
"sometimes  I  do,  and  sometimes  I  don't;  it 
all  depends  on  what  the  dream  is,  miss." 

"Well, "said  Esther,  slowly,  "I  do  believe 
in  them,  because  mother  comes  to  me  so 
often  in  my  dreams,  and  I  wish  that  the 
next  time  I  am  with  her  I  could  die,  and 
then  I  wouldn't  wake  up  without  her  any 
more!"  Esther  was  only  eight  years  old. 
It  was  a  piteous  thing  to  see  so  young  a 
breast  bearing  bravely  such  a  burden  of 
sorrow. 

' '  But  tell  me  about  your  dream  last  night, 
dear, "  said  Parks,  "do,  pray." 


196  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

"At  first,"  said  Esther,  "after  you  had 
tucked  me  into  the  cot,  I  couldn't  go  to 
sleep;  Marion  did  and  Bonnie  did.  But  I 
lay  wide-awake ;  it  was  so  warm  out  of  doors 
and  our  bedroom  is  so  little  and  hot !  Oh, 
Parks,  I  wish  we  could  go  home!"  Then 
she  looked  at  her  own  and  her  sister's  black 
dresses,  and  sighed.  "We  have  no  home," 
she  said,  slowly. 

"Well,  well,  are  you  never  coming  to  the 
dream,  Miss  Esther?"  said  Parks.  "Let's 
have  it;  there's  a  love." 

"Why,  at  last  I  fell  asleep,  and  I  dreamed 
that  an  old  witch  had  stolen  me  from 
home,  and  had  taken  me  to  live  with  her  in 
a  castle  that  was  ever  and  ever  so  far  away. 
And  I  used  to  wait  till  the  old  witch  fell 
sleep  after  her  afternoon  tea — just,  you 
know,  as  grandmother  does,  and  this  witch 
looked  exactly  like  grandmother,  only  she 
had  a  nose  and  eyes  like  Uncle  Fred- 
erick— and  when  the  witch  was  asleep, 
I  would  creep  softly  down  the  stairs 
and  go  into  the  garden.  It  was  such  a 
strange  garden;  all  the  flowers  and  trees 
and  even  the  birds  talked  just  as  we  do! 
And  they  were  all  so  kind  and  friendly,  and 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  197 

felt  so  sorry  for  me  because  I  was  homesick 

for  my  mother.  And "  The  rain  had 

ceased,  and  Parks,  longing  to  give  the  room 
some  fresh  air,  went  to  the  window  and 
opened  it  wide.  It  was  still  in  the  street 
below,  and  a  boy's  shrill,  clear,  distinct 
voice  was  heard  crying:  "T'ree  o'clock 
extra!  Full  particulars  of  the  first  day's 
trial  of  Mrs.  Bonnie  Mackirby  for  the  mur- 
der of  her  husband!" 

"The  boy  is  calling  the  paper,  nurse," 
said  Bonnie,  looking  up  and  smiling. 
Unloosing  Bonnie's  arms,  Marion  put  her 
sister  from  her  lap,  and  rose  to  her  feet. 
Her  face  was  very  white,  and  her  eyes  had  a 
new  look  in  them.  Marion's  childhood  was 
dead ;  her  womanhood  had  been  born ! 

She  opened  the  nursery  door  and  went 
down  the  two  nights  of  stairs,  and 
gained  the  drawing-room.  Her  grand- 
mother, with  her  bonnet  on,  was  taking  a 
cup  of  tea;  her  Uncles  Frederick  and  Dick 
were  both  present.  Not  one  of  the  three, 
to  the  days  of  their  deaths,  will  ever  forget 
what  passed,  will  ever  be  able  to  drive  the 
haunting  presence  of  that  child's  face  from 
memory. 


198  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

'  'Did  you  hear  him? ' '  she  said.  ' '  Did  you 
hear  what  that  newsboy  cried  out  just  now 
as  he  passed  under  our  window?  Did  you 
hear  him  say  that  my  mother  had  killed  my 
father?  Who  dared  to  say  such  a  wicked, 
cruel  thing!  Who  did  it?  Oh,  grand- 
mother, I  am  afraid  it  was  you  and  Uncle 
Frederick,  for  I  heard  you  talk  unkindly 
about  mother  one  day  when  I  was  behind 
the  curtains,  and  you  have  both  of  you  told 
Esther  and  me  such  wicked,  wicked  stories, 
and  I  will  never  believe  you  or  love  you 
any  more,  and  Esther  will  not  either! 

' '  I  am  going  upstairs  to  get  on  my  bonnet 
and  cloak,  and  I  am  going  straight  to  Lon- 
don to  see  the  queen.  She  is  such  a  good, 
kind  woman  that  she  will  let  me  come  into 
the  palace,  and  tell  her,  I  know;  and  then 
she  will  take  me  by  the  hand,  and  unlock 
the  door  of  the  room  you  have  shut  mother 
up  in,  and  let  us  go  home  together!" 

Neither  Madame  Mackirby  nor  Frederick 
moved  nor  spoke.  The  two  hardened,  cruel- 
hearted  plotters  were  frightened  as  they  had 
never  been  before.  But  Richard  Mackirby 
rose  and  came  forward,  put  his  arm  around 
the  child,  and  laid  her  head  upon  his  breast. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  199 

"Marion,"  he  said,  gently,  "it  is  best  that 
you  should  know  the  whole  truth  of  this 
matter ;  it  is  best  that  you  should  hear  me 
tell  it  now.  Your  grandmother  and  your 
Uncle  Frederick  believe  that  your  father  died 
from  poison;  that  it  was  given  him  in  his 
last  illness  by  your  mother.  They  had  the 
house  searched,  and  a  great  deal  of  poison 
was  found  in  many  places.  They  believe 
that  your  mother  bought  it  and  put  it  where 
it  was  found.  They  believe  a  great  many 
other  things,  and  have  sworn  to  them,  and 
so  your  mother  is  being  tried  for  this  crime 
now. " 

"Uncle  Dick." 

"What,  dear?" 

' '  Suppose  that  the  people  should  think  as 
grandmother  and  Uncle  Frederick  do? 
What  would  they  do  with  my  mother  then? 
Why  don't  you  tell  me,  Uncle  Dick?" 

"They  would — they  would , "  Richard 

Mackirby  broke  down.  He  put  his  hands 
before  his  face  and  sobbed. 

The  old  grandmother  leaned  forward  in 
her  chair.  She  looked  like  the  witch  in 
Esther's  dream.  "Do  you  want  to  know 
what  will  be  done  with  your  mother?"  she 


200  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

said.  "Well,  I  will  tell  you.  She  will  be 
hung  for  killing  my  boy. ' ' 

Had  the  child  heard?     Did  she  understand? 

She  put  her  hand  into  her  Uncle  Rich- 
ard's, and  she  stood  looking  at  the  old 
woman  and  the  man  beside  her  for  per- 
haps a  minute  or  more.  It  seemed  an 
eternity  to  them.  And  then  she  said: 
"Grandmother,  I  think  you  and  Uncle 
Frederick  are  the  wickedest  people  in 
the  whole  world!  And  nothing  you 
can  ever  do  will  make  me  love  you! 
You  have  taken  mother  away  from  us,  and 
now  you  tell  me,  her  little  girl,  that  you  are 
going  to  kill  her.  Oh,  mother,  mother! 
come  back  to  me!  I  want  you,  mother! 
come  back  to  me!"  The  child  swayed  and 
would  have  fallen  had  not  Richard  caught 
her  in  his  arms. 

After  much  effort  they  restored  her  to  con- 
sciousness, and  then  she  begged  that  "Uncle 
Dick  would  carry  her  upstairs  to  the 
nursery." 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  201 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 

Esther  had  followed  Marion  down  the 
stairs  to  the  drawing-room  door,  and 
there  she  remained  and  heard  all  that  trans- 
pired in  the  preceding  chapter. 

Who  can  tell  what  it  meant  to  this  child 
of  eight?     At  all  events,  it  is  known  that 
when  Marion  fainted,    Esther,   with  a  firm 
resolve    written  on  her  little   face,    betook 
herself  to  the  library.  ,  Once  there,  she  pro- 
ceeded to  collect  around  her,  upon  the  table, 
pen,  ink,  paper,  envelope  and  stamps,    such 
stamps  as  she  knew  her  mother  used  when 
sending  letters  to  America.     She  stuck  two 
of  these  stamps  upon  the  envelope,  and  then 
stood  in  deep  thought  for  a  minute.     Then 
she  took  up  the  pen,  and  slowly  and  pains- 
takingly she  printed  out  this  address : 
"TO  UNKLE  SAM, 
IN  THE  CARE  OF 
THE  PRESEDUNT,  WHO 
LIVES  IN  WASHINGTEN  IN 
AMERIKA." 


202  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

The  envelope  being  addressed  to  her 
satisfaction,  she  blotted  it,  and  then  began 
her  letter,  and  this  was  it : 

"DEER  UNKEL  SAM. 

"MY  MOTHER  IS  A  CRELASAN  OF 
YOURS,  AND  MY  GRANMOTHER 
AND  MY  UNKEL  FREDRIK  ARE 
GOING  TO  KILL  HER.  WILL  YOU 
PLEAS  COME  AND  GIT  HER  QUICK 
BEFOR  SHE  DISE.  YOUR  LOVING 

NICE 

"ESTHER  MACKIRBY." 

Esther  folded  and  sealed  her  letter,  and 
then  unnoticed  and  unheeded,  for  Marion's 
fainting  fit  was  claiming  the  attention  of 
the  entire  household,  the  child  slipped  out 
and  dropped  her  letter  into  the  postbox. 
Then  she  came  in  again,  and  mounted  the 
stairs  to  the  nursery. 

Marion  was  lying  on  the  sofa,  and  Parks 
was  sitting  beside  her,  with  Bonnie  in  her 
arms.  Esther  came  and  knelt  down  close 
to  Marion,  and  took  one  of  Marion's  hands 
in  hers. 

"Esther,"  said  Marion,  gently,  "Parks 
says  that  you  followed  me  downstairs. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  203 

Esther  did  you  hear  what  grandmother  told 
me?" 

Esther  nodded  yes. 

"Esther,  dear,"  said  Marion,  with  a  real 
little  mother  tenderness  threading  her 
words,  "you  needn't  be  afraid  of  grand- 
mother or  Uncle  Frederick  because  I  won't 
let  either  of  them  touch  you  or  Bonnie  or 
Parks,  and  besides  Uncle  Dick  is  our  friend ; 
but,  Esther,  we  must  pray,  pray  all  the  time 
for  mother.  If  we  pray  hard  enough  and 
long  enough,  perhaps  we  have  still  time  to 
save  her!" 

"Well,"  said  Esther,  "I  will,  of  course, 
pray  every  minute  that  I  can  make  myself; 
but,  Marion,  I  guess  if  God  won't  help 
mother,  her  Uncle  Sam  will!" 


204  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

"My  own  dear  Nell: 

"You  know  and  I  know  that  if  I  am  a 
new  woman,  I  am  no  crank;  that  I  detest 
the  sensational,  and  have  only  contempt  for 
those  of  my  sex  who  wish  to  make  themselves 
vulgarly  conspicuous.  So  when  I  tell  you 
that  I  am  actually  attending  all  the  sessions 
of  the  Mackirby  trial,  you  and  mother  will 
kindly  ascribe  this  performance  to  some 
earnest  and  honest  and  unselfish  motive. 

"Remember  that  this  Mrs.  Mackirby  is  an 
American  woman;  that  she  is  on  trial  for 
her  life,  and  that  she  has  not  a  relation  or 
friend  near  her.  When  I  had  thought  the 
matter  over  pro  and  con,  I  went  to  father-in- 
law,  and  I  laid  the  whole  subject  before  him. 
I  told  him,  however,  that  while  I  respected 
his  opinion,  I  should  abide  by  my  own 
decision,  and  that  I  wanted  him  to  make  it 
possible  for  me  to  attend  the  trial  and 
that  I  should  also  consider  it  a  favor 
if  he  would  corral  family  opinion  and 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  205 

confine  its  criticisms  to  the  home  cir- 
cle— and  bless  him!  he  not  only  patted 
me,  figuratively,  on  the  back,  and  called 
me  a  'good  fellow,'  but  he  fixed  it  so 
that  the  entire  establishment  have  never 
uttered  one  bleat  of  protest. 

"Father-in-law,  in  some  way  best  known 
to  himself,  arranged,  through  the  fact  of  my 
being  a  good  stenographer,  a  place  for  me 
at  the  reporters'  table,  and  the  espionage  of 
a  charming  fossil,  highly  connected  in  the 
journalistic  inner  circle,  who  is  doing  the 
case  'on  his  own  hook,'  for  what  good  and 
holy  purpose  I  have  not  been  able  to  dis- 
cover, and  I  am  supposed  by  the  men  and 
women  round  me  to  be  in  the  same  busi- 
ness. 

"Nell,  tell  father  that  he  will  have  to  give 
in  about  fads  being  foolishness.  Do  you 
remember  how  he  used  to  read  us  long  lec- 
tures about  taking  bread  out  of  the  mouths 
of  self-supporting  women  when  you  and  I, 
for  lack  of  something  better  to  do,  took  a 
six-months'  course  at  a  business  college? — 
and  then,  for  fun,  have  chosen  ever  since  to 
write  to  each  other  in  this  charming  cipher! 

"Here    I    am,    Nell,    in  a  lovely,    gray- 


206  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

sprinkled  wig,  that  makes  me  look  for  all 
the  world  as  pretty  and  unnatural  as  the 
child  in  Southey's  poem!  I  suppose  the 
people  about  me  think  that  I  am  an  intel- 
ligent widow,  for  I  have  adopted  plain  black 
and  unsmilingness,  and  my  eye-glasses — I 
had  them  made  to  order  for  the  purpose — 
complete  my  entire  disguise.  I'm  not  going 
to  describe  the  court-room  and  the  detail. 
Detail  and  descriptions  of  scenery  always 
bore  me  dreadfully.  The  court-room  and 
court  manners  are  vastly  different  from 
ours.  Everything  is  far  more  dignified. 

"Our  judge,  the  one  that  is  trying  Mrs. 
Mackirby,  is  a  splendid  old  wreck.  His 
manners  are  the  only  thing  left  of  what 
must  have  been  a  fine  and  forceful  person- 
ality. Now  he  is,  in  a  perfectly  gentle- 
manly way,  restless,  vacillating  and 
childishly  petulant.  The  idea  has  struck  me 
several  times  since  the  trial  began  that  the 
judge  and  the  prisoner  were  both  more 
appropriate  subjects  for  a  mad-house  than  a 
court-room.  I  hope  I  shall  be  able  to  show 
you  why  as  I  go  on. 

' '  Next  comes  the  jury.  They  are  less  than 
mediocre.  Where  they  found  twelve  such 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  207 

miserable  looking  specimens  I  can't  imag- 
ine !  They  make  up  for  their  lack  of  intelli- 
gence in  bodily  ponderosity.  They  look  for 
all  the  world  like  twelve  well-fed  oxen,  who 
are  chewing  the  cud,  not  of  sweet,  but  of 
bitter  fancy.  A  very  chatty  newspaper  man 
who  sits  next  to  me — I  am  the  rose  between 
him  and  Papa  Methusaleh — tells  me  that 
these  jurors  are  allowed  to  go  to  the 
theatre,  that  they  have  conversed  with  the 
public,  and  are  seen  perusing  the  daily 
papers!  Which,  if  true,  is  certainly  most 
reprehensible ! 

"And  the  prisoner!  Oh,  Nell,  Nell! 
When  I  look  at  her  the  shame,  the  cruelty  of 
it  all,  makes  me  want  to  bury  my  head  in 
my  arms  on  the  table  before  me  and  cry. 
She  is  all  but  carried  in  to  her  place  every  day, 
and  when  the  man  has  put  her  into  her 
chair,  she  never  fails  to  look  up  and  thank 
him.  Then  she  leans  back,  folds  her  hands 
in  her  lap,  and  looks  straight  before  her. 
She  must  have  been  more  than  a  pretty 
woman  once;  her  face  is  very  sweet  now, 
but  it  is  colorless,  and  her  eyes  have  such  a 
far-off  look.  She  has  a  great  lawyer,  and 
several  lesser,  although  most  brilliant,  legal 


208  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

lights  to  defend  her,  and  it  really  did  seem 
before  and  it  does  seem  now,  as  though 
there  was  no  case  at  all. 

"The  real  battle  began  when  the  crown 
called  Mrs.  Mackirby'smaid,  Elizabeth.  She 
was  a  mean,  contemptible-looking  creature ! 
and  I  noticed  that  while  she  swore  her 
mistress'  character  away,  she  never  once  let 
her  glance  stray  toward  the  prisoner.  She 
told  a  great  many  unbelievable  things,  and 
she  was  so  overflowing  in  personal  venom 
and  spite,  so  anxious  to  send  her  mistress  to 
the  gallows,  that  the  crown,  seeing  it,  had 
the  good  sense  to  make  quick  work  of  her. 

The  defense  handled  Elizabeth  without 
gloves,  and  made  a  pitiable  spectacle  of  her, 
and  when  she  got  down  and  out  of  the  case 
she  left  the  impression  upon  all  intelligent 
minds,  I  am  sure,  that  she  was  a  paid  spy 
in  the  past,  a  disgrace  to  her  sex  in  the 
present. 

"Then  came  the  brother.  I  can't  bring 
myself  to  talk  about  that  man!  I  believe — 
I  actually  believe,  Nell — that  when  he  dies, 
the  devil,  really,  will  give  him  a  basketful  of 
brimstone  and  matches  arid  send  him  off  to 
make  a  little  one  of  his  own!  I  can't  write 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  209 

about  him!  The  blackest  ink  is  white  in 
comparison  to  the  darkness  of  that  man's 
sin-stained  soul.  If  there  was  a  'Judas 
society, '  he  would  be  the  present  president 
of  it. 

"Then  the  poor  old  mother  was  lifted  up. 
But  she  proved  unintelligible,  for  when  she 
saw  Mrs.  Mackirby  she  went  off  in  as  wild 
a  tangent  as  'Mr.  F. 's  aunt'  ever  did  at 
sight  of  'Arthur  Clennam!'  So  they  had  to 
give  her  up  as  an  impossible  witness. 

"Then  came  the  doctors,  the  chemists  and 
the  toxicologists !  And  we  laid  Mr.  Mac- 
kirby's  internal  organization  out  flat,  and 
put  our  (figurative)  fingers  on  him  generally. 
We  discussed  dyspepsia,  chronic  and  the 
other  kind ;  we  dipped  deeply  into  headaches 
and  pains  in  the  stomach,  and  numbness, 
and  foul  tongues!  We  lived  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  badly  smelling  bottles — bottles  of 
all  sizes  and  descriptions,  from  the  Mac- 
kirby residence  and  the  Mackirby  office. 
One  of  the  jurymen  at  this  period  evinced  a 
lively  interest;  he  had  intense  color  and 
breathed  hard.  I  think  he  was  in  the  junk 
business,  and  that  naturally  his  mental  feet 
were  upon  his  native  heath!  Mr.  Mac- 
14 


2io  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

kirby  must  have  literally  bathed  himself  in 
'skeery'  patent  medicines.  He  must  have 
gone  on  regular  drug  sprees ! 

"And  during  all  this  time,  if  you  please, 
nobody  for  the  crown  said  anything  about 
Mrs.  Mackirby,  and  in  the  cross-examin- 
ation by  the  defense,  they  said  less;  but 
they  did  say  to  both  sides  that  Mr.  Mac- 
kirby had  boasted  to  them  individually 
of  eating  arsenic. 

"Did  the  doctors  think,  while  they  were 
attending  Mr.  Mackirby  in  his  last  illness, 
that  the  sick  man's  manner  indicated  that 
he  suspected  that  his  wife  was  trying  to 
poison  him? 

"Oh,  no!  Nothing  in  Mr.  Mackirby 's 
manner  suggested  such  a  condition  of  mind 
to  them;  indeed,  he  seemed  to  place  all 
confidence  in  his  wife.  He  was  very  rest- 
less, very  unhappy  when  she  was  absent, 
and  was  not  content  until  she  returned  to 
him,  and  they  talked  much  together  in  low 
tones. 

"Did  they  think,  from  anything  they  had 
observed  during  Mr.  Mackirby's  illness,  that 
Mrs.  Mackirby  knew  anything  about 
poisons?  Did  she  ever  speak  of  having  read 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  211 

books  on  the  subject,  or  had  she  made  any 
intelligent  remarks  in  this  connection? 

"Oh,  no!     Oh,  never! 

"Now,  about  the  mysterious  fly-paper, 
with  which  her  brother-in-law  felt  sure  Mrs. 
Mackirby  had  killed  her  husband.  Could 
the  fiber  of  the  fly-paper  be  gotten  rid  of 
without  careful  filtering,  and  straining? 

"No.     Certainly  not. 

"Would  an  inexperienced  young  woman 
be  likely  to  think  of  this  straining  and  filter- 
ing? (Crown  objected.) 

"Now,  to  the  best  of  these  doctors'  knowl- 
edge and  belief,  was  any  fiber  found  in  any 
of  the  arsenic  discovered  in  the  body? 

"No. 

"How  many  of  the  bottles  out  of  the 
hundred  and  more  collected  at  the  house 
had  been  found  to  contain  arsenic? 

"One. 

"Was  there  any  trace  of  filtered  fly-paper 
solution  in  this  bottle? 

"No. 

"One  particular  doctor  had  prescribed  a 
dietary  for  his  patient,  had  he  not? 

"Yes.     It  was  prepared  in  the  kitchen  by 


212  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

the  cook,  from  the  doctor's  own  recipe,  was 
it  not? 

"Yes;  and  this  was  taken  down  to  the 
office  by  a  footman,  after  the  cook  had  sealed 
it  up. 

"The  cook  swore  to  making  the  food  and 
tying  it  up;  footman  to  taking  it  from 
cook's  hands  directly  to  the  office. 

"A  chemist  was  called  who  had  sworn  to 
having  found  arsenic  in  food  particles  in  a 
jug  at  the  office.  Chemist  rather  rattled, 
and  not  so  sure  about  particles  to  the  defense 
as  he  was  when  the  crown  had  him. 

"Another  doctor  called.  This  was  a 
young  man  that  knew  everything!  He  was 
one  of  the  crown's  star  witnesses.  He 
swore  that  he  believed  that  Mr.  Mackirby 
had  taken  his  fatal  dose  of  arsenic  on  the 
third  'at  the  office.'  As  I  have  said,  he 
was  a  very  wise  young  person.  He  spoke 
pointedly  to  the  jury,  and  talked  with 
charming  irrelevance  about  sherry.  He 
might  have  said  'damn!'  just  as  well,  he  was 
so  fierce  over  it !  But  he  grew  rocky  when 
the  defense  got  him,  and  he  changed  from 
sherry  to  morphia,  which  really  seemed  to 
have  the  effect  of  putting  the  jury  to  sleep. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  213 

The  junk  man  absolutely  snored,  and  had  to 
be  waked  up. 

"A  chemist — another  one — was  called. 
Mrs.  Mackirby  had  bought  a  package  of  fly- 
paper from  him,  likewise  elderflower  and 
glycerine,  and  some  other  herbs  and  things. 
She  told  him  that  she  had  bruised  her  face, 
and  explained  how  she  was  going  to  pre- 
pare the  lotion.  He  thought  it  a  very  sens- 
ible prescription ;  she  had  had  it  sent  home 
in  an  unsealed  package,  and  the  boy  had 
delivered  the  package  to  Mrs.  Mackirby's 
footman. 

"Then  came  the  nurse!  Her  testimony 
made  me  tired.  She  was  one  of  those  awful 
stone  women  that  you  hate  as  a  matter  of 
principle.  She  implied  so  much  to  the 
crown,  and  the  defense  sifted  it  down  to 
this: 

' '  Did  any  of  the  physicians  suggest  to  her 
(the  nurse)  in  any  way,  or  at  any  time, 
before  Mr.  Mackirby's  death,  that  they  sus- 
pected Mrs.  Mackirby  was  trying  to  poison 
her  sick  husband? 

"No. 

"Had  they  at  any    time    cautioned  her 


214  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

against  permitting  Mrs.  Mackirby  to  feed  or 
give  medicine  to  her  husband? 

"No. 

"Had  anyone  cautioned  her? 

"Yes. 

"Who?  (Objected  to  by  the  crown;  over- 
ruled by  the  judge. ) 

"Mr.  Frederick  Mackirby.  She  had  said 
to  the  crown  that  Mr.  Mackirby  knew  that 
his  wife  was  poisoning  him. 

"How  did  she  know  it? 

"Because he  (Mr.  Mackirby)  said:  'Now, 
Bonnie,  be  sure  not  to  give  me  the  wrong 
medicine. ' 

"Who  was  pouring  out  the  medicine  at 
this  time? 

"She  (the  nurse)  was. 

"Why  did  she  (the  nurse)  pour  the  medi- 
cine out  and  then  give  it  to  Mrs.  Mackirby 
to  give  her  husband? 

"Oh,  well,  because  Mr.  Mackirby  was 
stubborn;  he  wouldn't  take  anything  from 
anybody  but  Mrs.  Mackirby. 

"Then  if  any  wrong  medicine  had  been 
administered  it  would  have  been  the  nurse 
who  would  have  made  the  mistake,  would  it 
not? 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  215 

"Yes,  she  supposed  it  would. 

"Then  is  it  not  more  than  probable  that 
Mr.  Mackirby,  knowing  that  the  nurse  was 
pouring  out  the  medicines,  might  have  said : 
'Bonnie,  be  sure  the  nurse  does  not  give 
me  the  wrong  medicine?' 

"The  nurse  looked  huffy,  and  said  she  was 
sure  she  didn't  know  what  he  meant,  or 
didn't  mean,  which  answer  was  so  unsatis- 
factory to  the  crown  that  they  had  quite  a 
lengthy  sputter  over  it,  and  came  out  second 
best  with  our  side. 

"A  farce,  Nell!  A  piteous  farce!  but  the 
defense  had  not  finished  with  the  nurse. 

"What  other  reason  had  she  for  thinking 
Mr.  Mackirby  was  being  poisoned  by 
Mrs.  Mackirby? 

"Oh  because  when  he  was  delirious  he 
said,  'Oh,  Bonnie,  how  could  you  do  it!'  over 
and  over  again. 

"Do  what? 

"The  nurse  did  not  know  what,  but  sup- 
posed 'poison  me.* 

"The  nurse  had  just  said  Mr.  Mackirby  was 
delirious.  Was  she  (the  nurse)  in  the  habit 
of  regarding  the  remarks  of  her  delirious 
patients  as  intelligent  conversation? 


216  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

"No.     She  didn't  know  as  she  was. 

"She  (the  nurse)  had  administered  meat 
juice  to  Mr.  Mackirby.  Did  she  give  Mr. 
Mackirby  the  meat  juice  at  Mrs.  Mackirby's 
request? 

"No.  Mrs.  Mackirby  insisted  that  Mr. 
Mackirby  was  too  weak  to  take  anything  so 
strong  into  his  stomach.  She  (Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby) forbade  the  nurse  to  give  it  to  him. 

"But  the  nurse  gave  it  to  Mr.  Mackirby, 
did  she  not? 

"Yes.    * 

"With  what  result? 

"Mr.  Mackirby  vomited  and  had  violent 
pain. 

"Did  anything  else  happen  to  the  meat 
juice? 

"Oh,  yes.  Mrs.  Mackirby  was  very  angry 
about  it.  She  got  up  and  took  it  away  from 
the  table  by  the  bedside  and  carried  it  off 
into  her  room. 

"Did  she  not  bring  it  back  and  put  it 
where  she  found  it? 

"Yes. 

"How  long  was  she  gone? 

"The  nurse  did  not  know. 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  217 

"Did  she  not  come  directly  back? 

"Yes. 

"Did  the  nurse  mention  to  Mr.  Frederick 
Mackirby  or  to  the  doctors  her  suspicions 
that  the  meat  juice  had  been  tampered  with 
by  Mrs.  Mackirby  before  Mr.  Mackirby's 
death? 

"No.     Not  until  after  his  death. 

"Then  the  handwriting  on  the  packages 
of  arsenic  were  brought  and  specimens 
of  Mrs.  Mackirby's  handwriting  too.  But  as 
nobody  had  come  forward  to  prove  that 
Mrs.  Mackirby  had  bought  a  grain  of 
poison;  as  the  police  had  not  been  able  to 
trace  a  grain  to  her  purchase  or  procure- 
ment, the  fact  that  the  handwriting  on  the 
packages  did  look  like  her  handwriting 
did  not  seem  to  be  a  powerful  argument 
pointing  to  her  guilt. 

"Mr.  Frederick  Mackirby  looked,  all  the 
time  this  writing  was  on  exhibition,  as 
though  he  were  the  artistic  arranger  of 
the  affair,  and  he  seemed  rather  ashamed 
of  his  work,  not  because  it  was  so  bad, 
but  because  it  wasn't  up  to  what  he  had 
intended  it  to  be. 

"Then  came  the  analysis.      And  it  was 


218  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

proved  by  specialists  for  the  crown  that 
although  the  man  was  a  confirmed  arsenic- 
eater,  that  his  wife  had  killed  him  with  an 
infinitesimal  dose.  It  was  proved  by  special- 
ists for  the  defense,  that  the  man,  being  a 
confirmed  arsenic-eater,  and  being  deprived 
of  the  drug  in  his  last  illness,  he  died 
from  lack  of  poison !  How  more  than  stupid 
of  Mr.  Frederick  Mackirby !  He  should  have 
accused  his  sister-in-law  of  wickedly  keep- 
ing arsenic  from  his  brother. 

"And  I  must  not  forget  to  tell  you  some- 
thing awfully  funny.  The  crown  accounted 
for  Mrs.  Mackirby's  allowing  so  much 
arsenic  to  be  about  by  saying  that  '  She  was 
an  incautious  and  artful  woman!'  I  wonder 
if  these  two  words  were  ever  harnessed 
together  before?  'Incautious  and  artful!' 
Poor  soul !  What  an  unhappy  combination ! 
It  makes  one  feel  weak-minded  to  contem- 
plate its  possibility!  They  also  said,  'She 
was  cunning  and  artful  to  a  degree,'  and 
added  in  the  same  breath,  that  she  exhibited 
an  extraordinary  want  of  caution  by  buying 
the  fly-paper  (to  kill  her  husband  with) 
openly,  and  leaving  it  steeping  on  saucers 
under  people's  noses! 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  219 

"Of  course  this  account  would  be  madden- 
ing to  a  man  to  read,  but  I  am  writing  to 
mother  and  grandmother  and  you;  and  if 
you  hear  father  grunt  or  sniff,  or  if  he 
begins  to  argue,  just  stop  short  and  don't 
read  him  another  word.  Mother  never  did 
sit  on  father  enough,  and  it  has  made  us 
girls  no  end  of  trouble ! 

"Well,  I  want  to  talk  about  one  of  the 
post-mortem-star  witnesses.  He  said,  in 
substance,  for  the  crown,  that  mineral  sub- 
stances have  a  tendency  to  preserve  the 
human  body ;  that  when  Mr.  Mackirby  died 
the  weather  was  cool,  and  then  he  swore 
that  within  forty-eight  hours  after  Mr.  Will- 
iam Mackirby' s  death  his  body  began  to 
decompose!  He  said  about  one-tenth  of  a 
grain  of  arsenic  was  discovered  in  the  body ; 
he  swore  that  two  grains  was  the  smallest 
fatal  dose  recorded.  He  said  that  a  man 
who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  eating  arsenic 
for  years  could  not  be  fatally  affected  by 
even  an  ordinary  killing  dose. 

"It  was  no  use,  Nell,  not  a  bit  of  use! 
The  poison  theory  was  knocked  higher  than 
Gilroy's  kite !  And  the  crown  knew  it ;  so 
they  brought  in  a  lot  of  love-letters  supposed 


220  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

to  have  been  written  by  Mrs.  Mackirby  to 
her  lover — mother-in-law's  nephew. 

"They  were  the  sort  of  love-letters  one 
finds  in  the '  Model  Letterwriter. '  A  great  deal 
of  'love'  and  'dove'  and  'darling.'  I  don't 
believe  that  she  ever  wrote  them.  If  she 
swore  that  she  had,  I  wouldn't  believe  her, 
for  I  think  she  has  lost  her  mind !  But  what 
these  letters  were  brought  into  the  case  for 
is  a  question.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
allusion  in  them  to  getting  rid  of  Mr.  Mac- 
kirby by  poison,  nor  about  buying  poison  nor 
soaking  fly-paper.  Mrs.  Mackirby  is  not  at 
the  bar  of  justice  for  disloyalty  to  her  hus- 
band, but  for  murdering  him.  If  all  the 
married  women  who  have  written  love- 
letters  to  men  who  were  not  their  husbands 
were  to  be  ferreted  out  and  sent  to  jail,  and 
then  tried  for  murder,  I  am  afraid  that  the 
wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth  would  be 
more  general  than  proper.  And  I  am  also 
sure  that  the  prison  accommodations  in  the 
United  Kingdom  would  be  uncomfortably 
filled. 

"The  crown  contented  itself  with  the  love- 
letters  and  a  hotel  porter.  This  porter 
swore  to  having  seen  Mrs.  Mackirby  and  a 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  221 

man  in  his  hotel,  but  he  was  evidently  a 
stupid  fellow  and  had  gotten  his  lesson  so 
badly  that  he  was  made  very  little  of  indi- 
vidually, although  he  was  used  in  the  sum- 
ming-up as  an  oratorical  flight. 

"Mother-in-law's  nephew  did  not  appear. 
They  hinted  at  him — the  crown  did,  I  mean 
— and  suggested  him  and  generally  coquetted 
with  him,  but  they  never  produced  him.  In 
fact,  he  couldn't  have  done  anything  to  help 
the  crown  hang  my  countrywoman,  so  they 
let  him  go. 

"The  family  physician  of  the  Mackirbys 
has  sworn  that  he  has  known  for  years  that 
Mr.  Mackirby  ate  arsenic  and  drank  arsenic ; 
that  fully  realizing  this  state  of  things  in 
Mr.  Mackirby's  last  illness,  he  gave  him 
arsenic  as  a  counteractant.  He  swore  that 
Mrs.  Mackirby  had  never  to  his  knowledge 
or  belief  done  anything  for  her  husband  that 
was  not  for  his  benefit.  He  swore  he  never 
suspected,  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing  as 
Mrs.  Mackirby's  poisoning  her  husband 
until  Mr.  Mackirby's  brother,  Mr.  Frederick 
Mackirby,  and  the  trained  nurse  told  him  of 
some  suspicions  they  had.  He  swore  he  was 
present  at  the  post-mortem  examination, 


222  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

and  he  said  the  stomach  contained  only  a 
very  small  portion  of  arsenic,  not  possibly  a 
fatal  dose;  and  he  thought  the  arsenic 
found  was  resultant  from  his  (the  phy- 
sician's) prescribing. 

"Then  more  witnesses  were  called — 
doctors,  chemists,  servants  and  friends  of 
the  late  Mr.  Mackirby — who  swore  to  sell- 
ing him  poisonous  medicines,  to  giving  him 
poison,  to  seeing  him  eat  and  drink  poison. 

"There  were  people  who  came  forward  to 
give  many  proofs  of  Mrs.  Mackirby 's  good- 
ness, kindness,  gentleness  and  generosity; 
to  tell  of  her  faithful  wifehood,  her  tender 
motherhood,  and  then  the  defense  rested. 

"The  crown  did  not  shake  in  the  least 
the  testimony  of  Mrs.  Mackirby's  witnesses 
in  their  cross-examination. 

"This  has  all  been  written,  Nell,  on  va- 
rious days  and  at  various  times.  It  is  all 
mixed  up  as  to  tenses  and  parts  of  speech, 
and  it  will  probably  be  worse  than  ever 
now,  for  the  trial  is  drawing  near  its  close. 
I  have  left  out  all  the  detail  and  probably 
much  that  is  important  besides;  but  home 
folk  are  apt  to  be  gentle  critics.  I  don't 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  223 

mean  to  say  much  about  the  summing-up  on 
either  side. 

"The  crown,  of  course,  was  eloquent  in 
its  denunciation  of  the  prisoner,  but  to  any- 
one with  a  grain  of  humor  it  was  a  roaring 
farce  to  see  a  great, big,  clear-headed,  free  man 
stand  up  there  and  call  the  pale,  semi- uncon- 
scious little  woman  prisoner  a  modern  Borgia, 
steeped  to  the  throat  in  blood!  To  hear 
him  appeal  to  those  pigs  in  pantaloons  and 
coats,  'to  look  at  the  prisoner,  to  mark  her 
cruel  smile,  the  brazen  effrontery  of  her 
stare,  her  hardened,  vicious  expression!'  It 
is  such  a  gentle  face,  Nell;  it  would  look 
like  a  benediction  under  a  nun's  cap!  It 
was  grimly  funny  to  hear  this  man  ask  the 
junk-dealer  and  his  eleven  brethren  to  'mark 
with  shame  how  brazenly  she  listened  to  the 
name  of  "scarlet  woman"  when  applied  to 
her;'  also  that  'black  were  the  thoughts  of 
Bonnie  Mackirby,  and  dark  as  hell  the  soul 
of  Bonnie  Mackirby!' 

"I  thought  of  Hawthorne's  'Hester 
Prynne,'  as  she  stood  high  above  her  stern, 
cruel  Puritan  persecutors  with  the  scarlet 
letter  upon  her  breast.  If  the  woman  in  the 
prisoner's  chair  has  ever  been  untrue  to 


224  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

her  marriage-  vow,  which  she  has  not — 
it  has  been  because  the  man  who  had 
married  her  had  driven  her  out  of  his 
heart,  had  left  her  outcast  and  desolate! 
It  was  because  numbed  and  chilled  and 
frightened  by  the  blackness  into  which  she 
was  cast  some  door  suddenly  opened  and  a 
kindly  voice  offered  her  shelter  and  warmth 
and  light.  Is  that  sin?  If  it  is,  the  good, 
good  God  who  called  a  human  woman 
'Mother'  will  have  a  welcome  and  a  robe  and 
a  loving  forgiveness  for  such  a  gentle  prodi- 
gal daughter. 

"Of  course,  the  defense  spoke  as  the 
defense  always  does,  for  the  prisoner.  But 
the  dreadful  charge!  For  oh,  Nell!  Nell! 
it  has  been  given !  It  startled  us  all.  The 
man  must  be  mad!  For  he  instructed  his 
jury  as  to  their  verdict!  Listen  to  this: 
'It  is  essential,'  he  said,  'to  this  charge  that 
the  man  died  of  poison,  and  the  poison  sug- 
gested is  arsenic.  And  the  question  that 
you  will  have  to  consider  is  and  must  be  the 
foundation  of  a  judgment  unfavorable  to  the 
prisoner;  that  is,  your  verdict  must  be  that 
he  died  of  arsenic. ' 

"I  looked  at  the  prisoner;  not  a  muscle  of 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  225 

her  face  had  moved.  I  looked  at  the  jury ; 
they  looked  like  a  lot  of  stupid  schoolboys 
that  had  been  given  a  hint  as  to  the  answer 
that  would  be  required  of  them.  And  I 
knew  through  my  womanly  intuition  what 
they  would  say.  I  looked  at  the  little  com- 
pany of  bloodhounds  who  were  running  this 
poor  creature  to  her  death.  The  brother- 
in-law  could  hardly  keep  from  openly  show- 
ing his  joy!  The  other  brother-in-law 
looked  faint  and  distressed.  He  is  a  friend 
to  this  poor  woman;  he  is  known  to  have 
done  everything  in  his  power  to  serve  her. 

"The  prisoner,  as  I  have  said,  looked 
happy.  She  seemed  quite  unconscious  of  her 
present  surroundings;  she  was  wrapped 
about  by  a  world  of  sweet  and  tender  mem- 
ories. 

"I  looked  at  the  reporters  about  me;  they 
seemed  to  me  to  be  startled  and  unable  to 
collect  their  thoughts. 

"Then  I  looked  at  the  people;  and  I  took 
heart,  I  took  courage.  I  found  hope,  for  I 
saw  a  strong  wave  of  disapprobation.  The 
intelligent  public  were  not  with  the  judge 
who  instructed  his  jury;  they  would  not  be 
with  the  jury  who  would  follow  blindly  the 


226  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

biased  instructions  of  the  judge.  Abraham 
Lincoln  knew  whereof  he  spoke  when  he 
said,  'For  the  people,  of  the  people, 
and  by  the  people.''  The  people  have 
always  ruled;  the  people  always  will  rule 
with  the  laws!  Arbitrary  triumph  may 
endure  for  a  night,  but  the  people,  God  be 
praised!  win  the  victory  in  all  Time's 
mornings. 

"Then,  Nell,  came  the  last  act,  the  closing 
scene;  for  of  course  the  jury  came  back  with 
a  verdict  of  guilty.  The  judge  wrote  out 
their  copy  for  them;  they  went  out,  and 
came  back,  and  announced  their  unanimous 
decision. 

"And,  Nell,  the  only  one  who  did  not 
expect  this  verdict  was  the  judge.  He 
looked  startled  and  roused  and  aston- 
ished. For  a  few  brief  moments  there 
was  a  force  and  an  intelligence  in  his 
face  that  had  never  lighted  it  before 
in  all  the  trial.  But  he  rose,  he  held 
the  black  cap  in  his  hands — the  black 
cap  which  the  judges  in  England  always  put 
over  their  wigs  when  they  pass  the  death 
sentence.  It  is  supposed  to  be  a  symbol  of 
sorrow,  this  cornered  'sentence  cap,'  but 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  227 

when  I  saw  the  old  man  raise  his  trembling 
hands  to  put  it  on,  my  first  impulse  was  to 
turn  away,  my  second  to  turn  to  her.  The 
prisoner  stood  up,  the  courtroom  was  very 
still,  and,  Nell,  as  I  raised  my  head  and 
looked  into  her  face  I  found  her  eyes  fixed 
upon  me,  and  somehow  I  felt  as  though  my 
soul  had  gone  out  of  my  body — had  gone  and 
put  its  protecting  arms  around  this  sister 
soul,  and  was  holding  her  close  and  was 
comforting  her. 

"The  minority  said  afterward  that  the 
prisoner  was  so  hardened,  so  indifferent  to 
her  fate,  that  she  smiled  as  the  judge  pro- 
nounced sentence!  The  great  majority 
drowned  the  shrill  piping  of  the  sleek- 
coated  minority.  They  said  'that  the  pris- 
oner looked  like  one  translated!  That  a 
look  too  fair  to  be  earthly  dwelt  upon  her 
quiet,  gentle  face.'  They  said  that  as 
the  judge  gravely  and  impressively  and 
euphoniously  repeated  the  words,  'Prisoner 
at  the  bar,  you  have  heard  the  verdict 
pronounced  by  your  fellow-countrymen!  and 
if  there  is  any  just  cause  why  sentence 
should  not  be  pronounced  upon  you, 
you  may  now  state  it,'  that  the  prisoner 


228  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

looked  up  quietly  into  the  judge's  face,  and 
answered,  'I  have  nothing  whatever  to  say, 
my  lord,  except  that  I  am  not  guilty. ' 

"And  then,  Nell,  came  the  doom.  It  was 
in  substance  that  within  one  month  Bonnie 
Mackirby  should  be  taken  to  the  gallows 
and  hanged  by  the  neck  until  she  was  dead, 
the  judge  kindly  adding  that  he  hoped  'God 
would  have  mercy  on  her  soul. '  Nell,  I  was 
very  near  her.  I  saw  her  lips  move,  and 
not  only  I,  but  the  jailer  and  her  lawyer 
caught  the  words,  '  I  thank  you,  my  lord. ' 

"The  British  lion  has  ceased  to  play  with 
the  American  mouse!  The  prisoner  has 
been  removed  to  a  cell  in  the  prison  set 
apart  for  condemned  criminals.  She  is 
permitted  to  see  nobody,  but  her  lawyer, 
and  then  it  must  be  in  the  presence  of  the 
governor  or  some  high  jail  official.  There 
seems  to  be  nothing  more  to  do.  The 
minority  have  won!  The  majority,  in  this 
instance,  may  howl  themselves  hoarse — as 
they  are  doing,  God  bless  them ! — but  it  will 
do  no  good. 

"The. papers  are  full  of  appeals,  of  pro- 
tests, nay,  of  demands  for  the  woman's 
release.  There  are  letters  printed  from 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  229 

noted  scientists,  noted  lawyers,  noted  phy- 
sicians, noted  toxicologists,  from  clergymen 
and  laymen,  and  from  women  of  rank  and 
of  intellectual  prominence,  all  asking  for 
mercy  in  the  name  and  for  the  sake  of 
Justice. 


"Days  and  more  days  have  come  and  gone 
since  I  put  aside  my  letter,  too  sick  at  heart 
to  finish  it  or  send  it  unfinished.  The  days 
are  nearly  accomplished  in  which  Bonnie 
Mackirby  is  to  make  herself  ready  to  die. 
And  a  strange  thing  has  come  to  pass,  the 
judge  has  been  adjudged  insane!  He  has 
been  taken  to  a  retreat.  The  physicians 
announce  that  the  man  has  been  suffering 
for  a  long  time  with  softening  of  the  brain. 
They  say  he  is  now  upon  the  verge  of 
imbecility.  But  do  you  suppose  that  the 
fact  that  the  judge  who  tried  Mrs.  Mackirby 
was  insane  will  stay  the  hand  of  the  English 
law  in  its  course?  No!  The  gallows  is 
being  built,  the  rope  tried.  There  is  in 
English  criminal  law  no  possibility  of 
rehearing  a  case  when  a  verdict  has  been 
found  by  what  is  considered  a  properly  con- 


230  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

structed  jury,  upon  an  indictment  which  is 
correct  in  form.  There  is,  Nell,  no  court  of 
criminal  appeals  in  England.  There  is 
nothing  to  do  but  to  make  appeals  to  the 
crown.  And  do  you  suppose  they  will  listen 
to  any  of  these  appeals?  Well,  we  shall  see. ' ' 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  231 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 

Closely  watched,  jealously  guarded  by 
warder  and  governor,  Bonnie  Mackirby  sat 
in  her  prison  cell,  waiting  for  the  day  to 
dawn  on  which  she  should  mount  the  scaffold 
and  be  strangled  to  death  in  a  hangman's 
noose.  They  had  taken  her  knitting-needles 
away,  and  so  there  was  nothing  for  her  to 
do  but  to  sit  with  folded  hands,  to  answer 
courteously  all  questions  addressed  to  her,  to 
obediently  and  cheerfully  submit  to  all  rules 
and  regulations,  to  ask  no  favors,  to  send  no 
messages,  to  make  few  requests. 

One  day  she  startled  her  guard  by  asking 
what  he  thought  would  be  done  with  her 
body?  He  answered  her  question  by  asking 
why  she  wanted  to  know.  Because,  she 
said,  if  there  was  no  legal  reason  to  the 
contrary,  she  should  like  it  cremated,  and 
then  perhaps  her  lawyer  would  be  willing, 
for  he  seemed  a  kind  man,  to  take  the  ashes 
(she  had  heard  that  they  could  be  com- 
pressed into  a  small  urn),  and  going  out 


232  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

with  them  on  some  tug,  way  out,  so 
that  the  shore  line  would  not  be  very 
distinct,  that  he  could  throw  them  into 
the  Atlantic  when  the  tide  was  going 
out.  She  said  that  she  supposed  it  was 
a  foolish  fancy,  but  she  had  come  to 
believe  that  a  merciful  wave  would  take 
those  ashes  and  carry  them  swiftly  back  to  t 
the  New  England  coast.  So  that  something 
that  had  once  been  her  would  really  be  at 
home  again,  would  touch  the  hem  of  Lib- 
erty's garments! 

Again  she  asked  him  if  it  would  be  pos- 
sible to  have  the  execution  at  twilight.  He 
asked  her,  as  before,  why  she  asked.  And 
she  said  she  should  like  to  go  away  with  the 
sun  as  it  sank  into  the  west. 

Her  lawyer  asked  her  if  she  had  any 
wishes  with  regard  to  her  children  and  her 
property. 

She  shook  her  head  sadly  and  replied :  "I 
have  no  power  to  will  or  to  do.  I  gave  my 
youth  and  all  that  I  possessed  to  England.  I 
leave  to  her  mercy  my  orphaned  children, 
and  all  that  once  was  called  mine  of  this 
world's  goods. " 

The  lawyer  asked  if  she  knew  that  the 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  233 

judge  who  had  sentenced  her  had  gene  mad. 

She  seemed  quite  roused  up  by  this.  She 
said,  oh,  no,  she  had  not  heard !  and  it  was 
very  sad!  and  poor  soul!  She  hoped  it 
was  really  true,  for  if  he  were  not  mad, 
and  he  was  only  being  locked  up  by  some 
one  who  wanted  his  money  or  his  children, 
it  would  be  a  terrible  thing.  She  hoped 
they  did  not  bring  up  his  conduct  in  her 
case  as  a  proof  of  his  insanity.  She  would 
not  like  to  be  even  the  innocent  means  of 
bringing  trouble  upon  him ! 

And  so  the  days  came  and  went,  and  into 
the  cell  there  often  came  now  the  prison 
chaplain,  to  read  and  to  pray,  to  admonish 
to  confession  and  repentance;  but  the 
studied,  professional,  stereotyped  voice 
robbed  the  words  of  any  holy  meaning. 
She  listened,  but  she  made  no  answer.  She 
did  not  kneel  or  say  amen,  for  this  man  had 
never  been  chosen  by  an  all-merciful  God  to 
minister  to  those  in  prison.  So  the  chap- 
lain let  fall  his  opinion  that ' '  Mrs.  Mackirby 
was  a  hardened  woman,  a  woman  with  a 
sinful  soul,  a  heart  of  stone !' '  He  said  that 
she  had  no  remorse  for  her  terrible  deed. 

But  in  spite  of  the  priestly  verdict,  heaven 


234  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

was  merciful  and  sent  down  a  peace  that 
passed  the  understanding  of  narrow  human 
minds.  She  was  comforted ;  she  leaned  on 
the  angel  that  she  could  not  see,  and  she 
felt  no  fear  of  what  man  should  do  to  her. 
She  knew  that  somewhere,  somewhere  in 
the  beyond,  there  was  a  kingdom  of  glory, 
and  in  the  thought  of  it  she  could  smile  and 
say  "Amen!" 

The  time  drew  very  near,  and  the 
jailers-  were  more  watchful  and  if  possi- 
ble more  kindly.  The  lawyer  came 
often  and  went  away  grief-stricken,  and 
it  had  come  to  be  the  day  before.  The 
chaplain  was  wearisome  in  his  atten- 
tions, and  after  he  had  gone  the  mar- 
tron  had  a  duty  to  perform.  One  of  the 
prison  rules  -had  as  yet  been  unfulfilled. 
They  had  until  now  spared  the  beautiful 
gold-glinted  chestnut  hair.  It  had  been 
unbraided  and  brushed  out  for  the  last  time 
and  the  woman,  with  her  shears  in  her  hand, 
felt  reluctant  to  fulfill  her  task.  Mrs.  Mac- 
kirby  spoke. 

"Do you  suppose,  matron,"  she  said,  "that 
the  queen  would  mind  if  you  saved  three 
locks  of  this,  that  I  will  kiss,  for  my  little 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  235 

girls?  I  do  not  mean  to  give  it  to  them  now, 
but  when  they  are  older  and  better  able  to 
bear  it  all. " 

"I'll  see  if  I  can  save  some,"  said  the 
matron,  sobbing  audibly. 

"Don't  cry,"  said  Mrs.  Mackirby,  gently, 
"don't  cry.  It  really  isn't  so  bad  as  it  seems, 
you  know.  I  have  done  no  wrong  and  I 
fear  no  evil." 

The  woman  had  not  as  yet  touched  the 
beautiful  hair,  and  she  threw  down  her 
shears  upon  the  floor,  and  she  came  and 
knelt  at  Bonnie  Mackirby's  knees. 

"Dear,  dear  lady,"  she  said,  "I  have  a 
baby  girl  up  in  heaven,  and  I'm  always 
grieving  about  her  because  she  seems  so 
alone  up  there.  She  was  such  a  mother 
child !  Always  clinging  to  my  gown,  always 
wanting  me  to  take  her  in  my  arms !  Would 
you  mind  looking  for  her?  Her  name  is 
Annie  Cummins;  and  would  you  mind 
cuddling  her  a  wee  bit  for  me?" 

Bonnie  Mackirby  stooped  down  and  kissed 
the  tear-stained  face.  "I  will  find  her,"  she 
said.  "Yes,  I  will  find  her." 

Just  then  there  was  a  noise  of  opening 
doors  in  the  corridor,  and  Dick  Mackirby 


236  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

and  the  lawyer  appeared,  and  the  governor 
was  with  them. 

' '  Bonnie !"  said  Richard  Mackirby.  ' '  Bon- 
nie, my  sister!"  She  looked  at  him,  but 
said  no  word.  "Bonnie,  the  Home  Secre- 
tary has  commuted  the  sentence  of  capital 
punishment  to  imprisonment  for  life. 
Thank  God!  thank  God!" 

In  the  silence  that  followed  the  prisoner 
spoke.  She  addressed  the  governor  of  the 
prison.  "Do  you  think,  sir,"  she  said, 
"that  the  queen  will  let  me  have  back  my 
knitting?" 


BONNIE  MACK1RBY.  237 


CHAPTER   XXXII. 

"My  dear  Nell: 

' '  This  is  the  last  letter  I  shall  write  to  you 
before  we  sail,  or  rather  steam,  for  home, 
and  between  ourselves  I  can't  get  back  quick 
enough.  And,  oh,  I  want  to  stay  in  Amer- 
ica for  ever  and  ever,  amen!  Bettie  can 
have  her  duke,  and  welcome.  And  as  soon 
as  I  get  into  Sandy  Hook,  if  I  am  not  too 
seasick,  I  am  going  to  read  the  riot  act  to 
Gerald.  I'm  going  to  tell  him  that  I 
couldn't  respect  a  man  who  expected  to  live 
in  a  country,  and  yet  who  declined  to  become 
naturalized.  And  I'm  going  to  keep  at  him 
from  that  time  on  until  he  does! 

"Mind  you,  I  think  England  is  fair  and 
delightful  at  her  greatest  and  best,  but  she 
is  dark  and  dreadful  at  her  lowest  and  worst. 
I  never  witnessed  such  poverty!  I  never 
imagined  such  wealth  and  magnificence !  I 
never  saw  broader  philanthropy  or  more 
heavenly  charity.  I  never  could  imagine 
such  an  enlightened  nation  as  being  able  to 


238  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

hold  itself  in  such  bondage  to  fixed  out- 
of-date  laws — which  they  say  came  in  with 
Edward  and  will  remain  to  cumber  the  Eng- 
lish earth  until  doomsday. 

"I  like  mother-in-law  and  I  love  father- 
in-law.  If  he  had  been  an  American,  he 
would  have  been  either  President  of  the 
United  States  or  a  chief-justice.  I  haven't 
yet  quite  settled  which.  I  like  the  twins,  as 
I  do  all  well-preserved  Dresden  china.  I 
like  the  brothers-in-law  because  they  are 
high-minded,  quiet-lived  gentlemen.  I  like 
the  sisters-in-law — a  little.  I  am  sure  that  I 
should  like  them  less  if  I  knew  them  better. 
And  I  like  going  home  to  my  own  dear  Cook 
County  best  of  all! 

"Nell,  please  don't  laugh.  But  ever  since 
that  poor,  innocent  American  woman  was 
convicted  of  nothing  at  all,  ever  since  her 
children  were  taken  from  her  and  she  was 
cast  into  prison  and  barely  escaped  hanging, 
I  have  in  spirit  been  a  perfect  Afferly  Flint- 
witch.  I  have  gone  about  with  a  figurative 
apron  over  my  head!  I  have  felt  like  Cain 
— as  if  every  man's  hand  was  against  me! 

"I  don't  think  the  queen  approves  of 
American  women.  I  fancy  she  dislikes 


BONNIE  MACKIRBY.  239 

seeing  her  titled  earls  and  dukes  supported 
by  the  money  our  fathers  over  the  water 
have  earned  by  honest  toil.  Of  course, 
pedigree  is  all  limited.  Even  kings  and 
queens  go  back  to  humble  beginnings.  But 
then  it  is  more  agreeable  to  have  sloop  cap- 
tains and  fur  peddlers  and  the  like  several 
hundred  years  off  than  only  the  day  before 
yesterday. 

"Well,  I  won't  trouble  her  majesty.  I'll 
turn  the  tables,  and  take  instead  of  give! 
I'll  make  a  rousing  Yankee  of  Gerald,  see  if 
I  don't! 

"I  suppose  you  are  as  thankful  as  lam 
that  Mrs.  Mackirby  did  not  hang.  But  I  do 
not  think  the  -woman  who  is  sitting  to-day 
in  the  solitude  of  her  prison  cell  cares 
for  the  life  they  have  given  her.  I  know 
that  she  expressed  no  gratitude  to  Eng- 
land when  it  stayed  its  hand.  I  know 
that  she  seems  to  have  neither  past  nor 
future,  hope  nor  fear.  When  she  can  see 
to  knit,  she  knows  that  the  sun  has  risen ; 
when  the  stitches  in  the  needle  cannot  be 
counted,  she  knows  that  night  has  come. 

"She  has  no  name  any  more.  She  is  called 
'murderess  such  a  number,'  and  this  will  be 


240  BONNIE  MACKIRBY. 

her  portion  until  a  time  when  it  shall  please 
the  All-Wise  to  call  her  to  appear  before  that 
higher  tribunal  whose  judgments  are  just 
and  when  there  shall  be  awarded  to  Bonnie 
Mackirby  a  new  name.  Then  she  shall 
know  why  all  this  sorrow  has  been  her  por- 
tion, and  she,  with  a  higher  wisdom,  shall  be 
glad  to  have  been  accounted  worthy  to 
suffer,  as  many  saints  have  done  through  all 
the  ages.  Then  she  shall  hear  the  voices 
of  the  angels,  saying  in  their  song  of  wel- 
come, 'This  is  one  who  has  come  out  of 
great  tribulation ! ' 

"Your   Sister  Nan." 


THE  END. 


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